Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Argus Filch always said that the only holiday worth having was the one you could crawl away from barely sober. This one had been… passable. A fortnight by the Cornish coast at Mrs. Hepplewhite’s boarding house, a mostly respectable establishment with thin walls, stout brandy, and the widow Hepplewhite’s well-known willingness to share her other comforts after dark. It was enough to put some color in his cheeks — and just enough bile in his stomach to sour at the thought of coming back.

He hated Hogwarts students. Hated their noise, their hexes, their muddy boots, their silly grins. He hated their parents, too — fools and liars, all of them, sending their brats off to learn to wave sticks and turn teacups into turtles while he — a Squib — scraped candle wax off the corridor stones for a living.

But what else was there for a man like him? Squib jobs didn’t exactly sprout like mushrooms. So he endured it — counting the days until next summer, when he could go back to the boarding house and Mrs. Hepplewhite’s quiet, conspiratorial laugh.

On the Knight Bus back to the castle, he cracked open his only bit of contraband comfort: A battered paperback of The Maltese Falcon he’d confiscated from a student a few years ago. He liked Sam Spade — liked the way the detective could stare down rich men and crooks alike, liked that he never blinked when the lies started to pile up. Filch fancied himself a bit like that, sometimes.

Never fooled. Never fooled for long, anyway.

It gave him a shiver. Made him feel sharp-edged, just for a moment. One day, maybe, there’d be something worse than muddy boots for him to handle. And when that day came, maybe they’d see — Argus Filch wasn’t just the castle’s mop boy. He’d be the one to set things straight.

The bus rattled to a halt at Hogsmeade. He snapped the book shut and tucked it into his coat. As always, he’d slipped the conductor a few Sickles to get them to move him up the queue— he had a tendency to get queasy when the bus turned sideways to dodge a herd of goats.

It was nearly ten thirty in the morning when he trundled up the front steps of the castle — Mrs. Norris’s basket under one arm, pulling his battered trunk up the steps behind him. He paused at the top, peering into the dim, echoing Great Hall. Cobwebs. Hanging from the rafters like smug little reminders of his endless to-do list.

“Lovely,” he grunted. He’d be up all night cleaning, no doubt, just so those snot-nosed brats could smear treacle tart and pumpkin juice all over it again tomorrow evening.

He trudged toward the staff room. Might as well hang up his coat and get started. Mrs. Norris slipped from her basket and skulked ahead, tail twitching. She was the only one who understood him, really. The only one who knew how rotten it all was.

His boots squeaked on the flagstones as he shoved the staff room door open with his shoulder.

“Back to the grind, eh?” he muttered, half to himself, half to the ghost of Spade still lingering behind his eyes. “Bet you never had to scrub jam off a gargoyle.”

But there, at the long table, slumped over a pile of parchment, was a man he didn’t recognize — lank hair falling into his face. An enormous oversized blue wizard’s hat lay on its side on the table along side a coffee mug, turned on its side with the coffee spilling out. The man was fast asleep, by the look of it.

Filch’s lip curled. “Lazy devil. Staff room’s not for nappin’,” he rasped, stepping closer. “Oi. You — wake up. Sleep in your own room.”

He reached out a bony hand, gave the man’s shoulder a firm shake. The man slumped further, head rolling so that Filch could see its open, unblinking eyes.

Filch froze. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

“Lazy devil…” he repeated softly, but there was no real bite in it now. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry as dust. A smell of mothballs permeated the room.

He straightened up, wiped his hand on his coat. His eyes fell on the spilled coffee cup by the man’s elbow. He didn’t know what that meant, if anything. But the staff room was cold all of a sudden, as if the castle itself had stopped breathing for a moment.

He thought about the book he was reading. What would Sam Spade do?

Filch considered the corpse for a moment, and then said aloud, “The body had a hat too big for his brains and a face too smug for his own good.” He smiled, and for a moment he wasn’t Filch, Hogwarts caretaker. He was Argus Filch, private investigator.

Mrs. Norris slipped back in and meowed at his feet. For once, Filch ignored her.

He turned toward the corridor, his mind already racing. Cobwebs would have to wait. There was something much nastier that needed cleaning up first.

And this time, Argus Filch — Hogwarts caretaker, Squib, and maybe, just maybe, the castle’s Sam Spade — would be the one to do it.

He bent down stiffly, clucked his tongue, and Mrs. Norris padded close to his ankle. She blinked up at him, eyes glinting.

“Well, my pet,” he rasped, scratching the ruff of fur behind her ear, “we’d best go tell the Headmaster.”

The climb to the gargoyle made his knees pop like old floorboards. He muttered the password — Fizzing Whizzbees — and the spiral stair creaked to life beneath his boots. He never did get used to it, the way it spun you up like a corkscrew.

Dumbledore was working perched behind his cluttered desk, spectacles perched on the end of his crooked nose, quill scratching out some letter that probably decided the fate of the whole damned country.

Filch didn’t bother to knock. He just stepped in, Mrs. Norris curling around the doorframe behind him.

“There’s a stiff in the staff room,” he said, flat as a flagstone.

Dumbledore’s quill stilled mid-scratch. He lifted his eyes — pale, clear, sharp as frost.

“A staff in the staff room?” Dumbledore looked back down at his letter. “You should put it in the lost property box.”

“Not a staff, a stiff, headmaster.” Filch wondered if he’d need to explain Sam Spade’s argot.

“A stiff? Do you mean a dead body?” Maybe he had read the book after all.

“Man with a big blue hat,” Filch added, gesturing vaguely. “Didn’t stir when I shook him. Cold as last month’s tea.”

Dumbledore rose, robes rustling. “Professor Silas Thorne?”

Filch sniffed. “If that’s what you say his name is. I don’t know about that — but I know dead when I see it.”

There was the tiniest flicker of something — Grief? Fear? Relief? — behind Dumbledore’s eyes. Then it vanished, replaced by that fathomless calm that made Filch’s stomach twist.

“You’d better come,” Filch said, turning on his heel. Mrs. Norris hissed softly, her tail flicking.

“Yes,” Dumbledore murmured, already striding around the desk, cloak swinging behind him. “Yes, Argus. Show me.”

Dumbledore bent low over the body, fingers hovering just above Professor Thorne’s temple.

“Professor Thorne,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. No obvious wounds… but—”

He turned, blue eyes flicking around the staff room. His wand drifted lazily over the carpet, across the chairs, past the large conference table, and over the grand staffroom fireplace. The tip glowed faintly, picking up invisible traces.

Filch shifted from foot to foot. “What is it, Headmaster?”

“There was a duel here,” Dumbledore said quietly. “Spell residue. Just enough to suggest a struggle. And you can see the coffee cup knocked over.”

Filch’s mouth fell open. “So he might’ve been murdered? Someone could’ve cursed him—like—like that?” He jerked his chin at the corpse.

Dumbledore’s gaze was distant, troubled. “It’s possible. A spell, a potion, or something else... subtle. There’s a broken blood vessel in his eye. No other marks though.”

Filch squinted at him. “Who could’ve done it, then? One o’ them students back early? Or—”

The old wizard looked weary. “The house-elves are at the Ministry for their annual kitchen hygiene course. There are very few of us in residence at the castle today. The rest of the staff don’t start arriving until this afternoon. or tomorrow morning.”

Filch started scratching the bald spot on his head, thinking.

“Who’s here at the castle then? I only just arrived back from my holiday.”

“Ah yes..” Dumbledore got a twinkle in his eye. “I hope Mrs. Hepplewhite was in her usual fine form.”

Filch blushed and scratched the bald spot on his head,

“Apart from myself,” Dumbledore continued, “let me think. Severus has been here a week, brewing potions to stock up the hospital wing. Pomona has been here all summer, tending to the greenhouses. Minerva arrived last night — she had to meet our new teacher when he arrived this morning.”

“Professors Snape, Sprout, McGonagall and yourself? That’s all, headmaster?”

“No, let me think... Sibyll might be in residence already — I confess I’m not certain. I don’t get up to her tower very often. I believe Filius was scheduled to arrive early this morning, but I haven’t seen him. I think that’s everyone.”

“Could it have been an intruder?”

“All the secret passages have been sealed since Voldemort’s return, and the portraits have not reported any strangers. As much as I wish it were not so, Argus… the culprit must be one of us.”

Filch’s eyes went wide. He shuffled back a step, hand tightening on Mrs. Norris’s carrier. “You’ll have to call the Ministry, then. Let the Aurors come in—”

“No,” Dumbledore cut in, his tone gentle but ironclad. “You know well, Argus—Voldemort has compromised the Ministry, especially the Auror office. We need to handle this investigation internally. Otherwise, we will have Voldemort’s supporters swarming the school when the students return tomorrow. ”

He straightened, gaze suddenly pinning Filch with unsettling clarity. “You, Argus Filch, are the only one above suspicion. The only one who couldn’t have cast the magic used here.”

Filch stared at him. “Me?” He looked like Christmas had come early.

Dumbledore gave a small, weary smile at his enthusiasm.   “Yes, you. You must take charge of the investigation. Find the truth before the students return tomorrow. Do what you must—question everyone, search their quarters, their offices. If you feel it necessary…” His eyes twinkled, though dimly. “I trust your… particular insight, Argus. You know how to keep your eyes open. Like a certain detective you like, perhaps.”

Filch swallowed, throat dry. “Right then. I… suppose I’d better get started.”

Dumbledore raised his wand and flicked it sharply. Threads of silver light curled away—shimmering patronuses carrying word to the other teachers. “You’ll have your suspects shortly,” he said. “Best be ready, Argus.”

Filch squared his shoulders, feeling the weight of Hogwarts settle around him like a damp cloak. He gave Mrs. Norris a scratch behind the ears and muttered, “Right then, my girl. Looks like we’re in for a long day.”

Mrs. Norris looked up at him and purred.

Long day, long night. Doesn’t matter. Hogwarts had its first stiff, and Argus Filch had his first case.

Chapter Text

The door to the staff room banged open.

Severus Snape swept in first, robes snapping at his ankles. His eyes flicked from the body slumped over the table to Dumbledore, then to Filch hovering awkwardly in the corner. Snape’s lip curled.

“What,” he hissed, “is this? I was preparing lesson plans, Headmaster. What could possibly—” His gaze fixed again on the corpse. “Is he dead?”

Dumbledore inclined his head, grave but calm. “I’m afraid so. Professor Thorne was found here not twenty minutes ago.”

Snape crossed his arms, voice dripping with disdain. “Convenient. Dead before term even begins. How dreadfully tragic. And what does this have to do with me?” He paused for a moment. “Unless you need a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher…”

Dumbledore sighed. “Not now, Severus.”

Snape’s eyes narrowed, but he stepped back, arms still crossed like a barricade.

Moments later, the heavy door swung open again. Minerva McGonagall arrived next, her tartan cloak crisp over her shoulders. Behind her came Professor Sprout, flushed from the climb up the stairs.

Minerva’s sharp eyes snapped to the corpse, then to Dumbledore. Her lips pressed into a pale line. “Professor Thorne?” Her voice was tight but composed.

“I’m afraid so,” Dumbledore confirmed.

Sprout exhaled, glancing uneasily at the body, then at the oversized blue hat lying dusty on a nearby table.

“Who found him?” Minerva asked, her eyes flicking to Filch. The door banged again and Flitwick appeared on the threshold, looking unusually flustered.

“I did,” Filch muttered. “Just now, when I got back from my holiday. Thought he was asleep at first.”

There was a tense hush as they waited. Sibyll Trelawney drifted in last, shawls trailing, beads clicking faintly. She peered around the room, her huge glasses already fogged. “I sensed… a disturbance in the ether,” she announced dramatically. “It was death, wasn’t it? I foresaw—”

“Thank you, Sibyll,” Dumbledore interrupted gently. “Please, everyone, gather close.”

They formed an uneasy semicircle near the table where Thorne lay slumped, his oversized wizard’s hat lying on its side.

Dumbledore folded his hands. “It appears Professor Thorne died this morning under… suspicious circumstances. There are no obvious wounds, but there are traces of dueling magic in the room. The Ministry cannot be trusted, not since Voldemort returned to power, so we must investigate this ourselves—quickly and discreetly—before the students arrive tomorrow.”

A murmur rippled through the group. Minerva’s eyes flicked to Sprout. Snape let out a quiet, contemptuous huff.

Dumbledore went on. “Argus discovered the body. He will lead the initial inquiry.”

Snape barked a short, humorless laugh. “The caretaker? A Squib? To question Hogwarts professors?”

“Someone above suspicion,” Dumbledore said firmly. “He only just arrived on the Knight Bus. And Argus is practical, with an eye for details. He knows these walls better than any of us.”

Sprout gave Filch a small, encouraging smile. Minerva’s mouth tightened again, but she said nothing.

Filch cleared his throat. “I… I’ll need your cooperation. All of you. No exceptions.”

Sibyll sniffed dramatically. “I suppose the Grim has claimed him. Or perhaps—”

“Enough,” Minerva snapped, her eyes flashing. “Argus, how do you wish to proceed?”

Filch drew in a steadying breath. He knew what he wanted. What he’s always wanted. To level the playing field a bit. And here was his opportunity.

“Headmaster, I’m at a bit of a disadvantage here. One of you is a murderer, and I can’t cast magic.”

“Do what you need to do, Argus.” Dumbledore was encouraging.

Filch grinned with satisfaction. “To start, I’ll need your wands. I know it’s a lot to ask, but one of you is a murderer and you can’t keep carrying your weapons.”

Filch got a gleam in his eye. Let’s see how they felt being at Hogwarts without being able to cast magic.

A collective protest rose—small sounds of disbelief, protest, annoyance.

“Childish theatrics!” raged Snape. “This is unbelievable! Headmaster, I refuse…”

Dumbledore held up a hand. “We will comply. It is the only way to show we are each willing to be examined, equally.”

Snape’s jaw flexed, but he said nothing. Sprout looked resigned. Minerva’s fingers twitched at the sleeve hiding her wand. Flitwick just clutched his notebook tighter. Trelawney looked as if she might swoon.

Dumbledore handed his over first, and the others followed. Snape was last, and flashed a menacing scowl in Filch’s direction.

“Mr. Filch,” Minerva warned. “I hope you appreciate the responsibility you are undertaking in confiscating our wands.”

Filch met each pair of eyes in turn. “I’ll keep them safe. I promise you that.”

Silence settled over the room, as heavy as the layer of dust in the Great Hall.
Mrs. Norris crept in behind Filch, her lamp-like eyes gleaming as if she, too, would see the truth.

“I’ll just get a few... necessities and then begin my investigation.” With that, he swept out of the room, clutching a fistful of wands.

When Filch came shuffling back into the staff room, Dumbledore nearly dropped the mug of tea he’d conjured for himself. Snape, hunched near the hearth with his arms folded, just squinted — then let out a bark of incredulous laughter.

Filch had changed out of his battered coat and was now sporting what could only be described as a very questionable fedora, perched at a rakish angle on his balding pate. In one hand he clutched a battered notebook and an old brass quill that looked like it hadn’t been sharpened since Grindelwald was still throwing parties. In the other hand, he had the battered leather satchel that housed his cleaning kit for detail jobs.

He looked nervously round. He’d been waiting for the right moment to wear his fedora. He supposed that was now.

“Argus Filch, Detective,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. He tipped the brim of the hat, as if to seal the deal. Flitwick laughed and then abruptly covered with a coughing fit.

Minerva looked up at the hat with a doubtful expression, then exchanged looks with Albus.

Snape’s lip curled. “Merlin… Have you completely lost your mind? What is that on your head?”

Filch looked a bit self-conscious, but then started pacing slowly around the corpse. He flicked his notebook open, the pages stained and foxed at the corners. The quill scratched as he began to write, muttering under his breath:

The room was cold — cold like a crypt with the fire dead and the curtains shut tight. The stiff on the table had a hat too big for his secrets and a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. Yours truly, Argus Filch, the only man in this castle with enough backbone to smell the rat in the rafters.

Snape, reading over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow. “Your ‘backbone’ smells like mothballs and old brandy, Filch. And that hat — your hat not the… ‘stiff’s’ — is ridiculous.”

Filch paused, narrowed his eyes, then flipped to the next line and wrote:

In the corner, a tall, greasy number named Snape snarled like a snake with its tail caught in the door. Said the detective’s hat looked ridiculous. The detective, being a man of taste and cunning, noted the potions master’s opinion and filed it away in the round can.”

Snape made an offended choking noise. “You’re narrating my insults now?”

Filch didn’t look up. “I write what I see. And what I see is you, making noise instead of helping.”

Snape’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. For a moment, there was only the scratch of Filch’s quill as he stalked around the body, his fedora throwing a lopsided shadow on the walls.

He lifted the dead man’s limp hand with the tip of his fingers, inspecting the calluses and the ink stains. Jotted down another line:

He wasn’t a clean man — not where it counted. Too many secrets in the lines on his palm, too much dirt under the nails. That was the trouble with stiffs. They always told the truth, sooner or later.”

Snape pressed his lips together, glaring at the fedora like it was a personal insult. He didn’t say another word.

Filch let out a small, satisfied grunt. Who’s laughing now, Sam Spade? he thought, giving the quill another approving scratch on the parchment.

The Hogwarts brats would be here tomorrow. Until then? It was Filch’s time. And he was going to get to the bottom of this if he had to pry every secret out from under every stone in this drafty old castle.

And he’d look good doing it, fedora and all.

Chapter Text

Filch squared his shoulders, and snapped his notebook shut with a satisfying thwap. He glared at the gathering of Hogwarts professors as if they were unruly schoolchildren — which, in his mind, they might as well be.

“Right, you lot,” he rasped, pointing the brass nib of his old quill at the staff like a wand of his own. “Into the Great Hall with you. And you can make yourselves useful while you’re at it.”

Snape, arms folded, narrowed his eyes into slits. “Useful? Do elaborate, Argus.”

Filch gave him a wolfish grin. “Cobwebs and dust. Everywhere. I’ve got a crime to detect. Means I can’t be scribbling the tables clean and sniffin’ out a murderer, can I?”

Snape scoffed, mouth twisting. “And how, exactly, do you expect us to remove cobwebs without magic? We’re wandless, in case your grand detective brain forgot.”

“Follow me, you lot. Not you, headmaster.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of being treated differently.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled.

“As you wish.” Filch shrugged. He turned on his heel, the fedora tipping dramatically, and yanked open the battered supply closet beside the staff room door. After a moment of shuffling and the sound of something falling over inside, he emerged clutching a sad bundle of old feather dusters — the bristles more grey than white, the handles sticky with polish and age.

He shoved the biggest, limpest one straight into Snape’s chest. “There. Magic enough for you?”

Snape took it reluctantly, holding it between two fingers as though it were a dead rat. “This is barbaric.”

Minerva arched an eyebrow, but Sprout gave a little shrug and took one without fuss. Flitwick eyed his duster like it might bite him. Trelawney sniffed one delicately, then sneezed.

Reaching in the closet again, he extracted a broom and handed it to the headmaster, who accepted it cheerfully.

Filch grinned like he’d just won the House Cup. “I’m going to be busy investigating the scene — proper detective work, see. None of you so much as breathe near the staff room door without my say-so. Understand?”

Snape muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “peasant chores.” Filch didn’t care. He just flipped open his notebook again, quill poised, and began scratching out a line as they reluctantly shuffled toward the Great Hall, their new plumage in hand.

The Great Hall — big, drafty, crawling with shadows and secrets. And five suspects — professors, they called themselves — turned out like common scrub-girls, feather dusters in hand. The tall, greasy one scowled like the broom closet owed him gold. The tartan one set her jaw like she’d hex the cobwebs to death if she still had a wand. But none of ‘em could run. Not with Argus Filch — Hogwarts caretaker, Squib, detective — watchin’ every last dust bunny shake loose.

Mrs. Norris wound around his ankles, purring. Filch tilted the fedora just so, smirking at the professors’ retreating backs.

Let them clean. He had dirt of another kind to dig up.

Filch stood in the doorway of the staff room, fedora tipped forward just like Sam Spade’s. He had his detail cleaning kit open on the table and his notebook balanced on one palm. Mrs. Norris prowled behind him, tail flicking, her bright eyes fixed on the corpse like it might twitch back to life.

“All right, my girl,” he muttered to her. “Don’t you go shedding all over the place.”

He crouched low by the long staff room table, knees creaking like a haunted stair. His eyes, sharp from years of spotting muddy footprints and forbidden Fizzing Whizzbees wrappers in the corridors, scanned the carpet. He saw it — just there, by the leg of the table — a curl of something dark, fibrous. Not quite a hair, not quite a thread. He leaned closer, squinting until the tip of his nose nearly brushed the floor.

“Brown fibers. Threads of cloth,” he rasped, voice hoarse with the satisfaction of a man who knew dirt better than he knew his own face. “Not dust. Not common castle fluff, neither. Something else.”

He pulled from his bag a long pair of metal tweezers, their points stained from decades of removing Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum from under desks. With all the reverence of a man lifting a goblet in church, he bent, tweaked the fibers from the carpet, and held them up to the lamplight.

“Gotcha,” he whispered.

Mrs. Norris meowed.

“Quiet, woman,” he hissed. “Detective work in progress.”

He looked around wildly for what to do with the evidence. His pockets were full of Mrs. Hepplewhite’s ginger biscuits, and he wasn’t about to contaminate those delicacies with clues. He shuffled out of the staffroom, tweezers aloft, only to reappear cradling a dusty stack of old Hogwarts stationery envelopes, ones the students never stole because they smelled faintly of mildew.

He laid the stack on the table with the corpse. With exaggerated care, he finally tweezed the brown fibers into an envelope and pressed the flap closed. Then he tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of his coat, right next to his battered paperback of The Maltese Falcon.

He turned his attention to the conference table, where the late Professor Thorne was sprawled, his enormous blue hat having fallen off his head and his mostly-empty coffee cup on its side, with the remaining contents pooling around it.

Filch eyed the oversized blue wizard’s hat lying limp on the staff room table like a children’s balloon five days after the party. He nudged it with the end of his quill. It flopped over the stiff’s arm, far too big for a man whose skull — by Filch’s reckoning — wouldn’t have filled a decent teacup.

He sniffed. “Big hat for a small man. Or a man with big plans.”

He picked it up, dust motes drifting like secrets in the stale air. He removed his fedora and lowered the blue hat onto his own head for a laugh. It didn’t even graze his scalp — hovered there, just shy of his balding head.

Then he squinted at the stiff’s head. Didn’t add up — that hat could’ve hidden a whole menagerie on top of that scrawny dome.

“Measure twice, accuse once,” he grumbled.

From his battered bag he fetched his tape measure, one end frayed from years of measuring cauldrons and suspicious student foot tracks. He looped it around the hat’s inner band first, tugged snug. Jotted it down. Then he wrapped it around the corpse’s cold skull. A good few inches of hat left over.

“Oversized blue hat — far too big. Enchanted band floats. One size fits all, or one size hides all. Poor stiff had plans. Plans big enough to need space under his hat.”

He snapped the tape shut, eyes gleaming. The fedora perched on his own head wobbled, but he gave it a defiant tug. He liked it there. Made him feel like the right kind of detective. The kind that didn’t miss a speck of dirt.

Finally he moved his head close to the mug, but all he could smell was coffee. He’d have to get it analyzed, and there was only one person for that job.

Chapter Text

The Great Hall was a sorry sight. The enchanted ceiling still shone bright and blue, but it shined down on shafts of dust motes in the air. Down below, a handful of the most powerful witches and wizards in Britain were scowling into feather dusters. Professor Sprout wrestled with cobwebs dangling from a chandelier. McGonagall’s tartan sleeves were rolled up, dust smudged across her cheek. Flitwick sneezed into his elbow as he flicked futilely at the baseboards. Sibyll Trelawney sighed tragically over her duster as if it were a personal prophecy of ruin.

And at the center of it all, sweeping with slow, patient strokes, was Albus Dumbledore. His long beard trailed like a mop across the stones.

Filch paused in the doorway, savoring the sight. Their wands—stacked safely in his office—were the symbol of his authority, and oh, how it showed. Professors, stripped down to his level, grumbling like first-years caught in detention. Mrs. Norris twined between his ankles, tail flicking smugly.

“Professor Snape,” Filch rasped, lifting the chipped coffee cup high in one hand. “Step this way.”

Snape lowered his duster with glacial disdain, eyes narrowing as if summoned to a duel rather than a mop-boy’s errand. “What is it now, Filch?”

Filch thrust the cup forward. “Want this analyzed. Proper. Whatever was in it might’ve killed our stiff.”

Snape arched a brow, his voice cutting like glass. “To conduct such an analysis requires my wand, as you are perfectly aware. Unless you expect me to cast diagnostic charms with a feather duster?”

Filch stiffened. His advantage had been the confiscated wands, and he was loath to give it up. He squinted, weighing the risk, then said slowly, “Fine. You’ll have it—but only while I’m standin’ right beside you. One wrong move, and I’ll know.”

Snape’s lips curled in a mirthless smile. “Oh, delightful. Supervised potioneering. Lead the way.”

Snape’s dungeon office smelled of cold stone, dried herbs, and something acrid that clung to the nostrils.

Filch hovered like a vulture at Snape’s shoulder as the professor drew his wand with a practiced flick. The coffee cup hovered, rotated, its contents separating into glowing strands under a charm Filch didn’t understand. Snape murmured incantations, his wandtip darting like a conductor’s baton.

“Black coffee,” he said at last, tone clinical. “A trace of firewhisky… or some other alcohol. And here—”

He flicked his wand again, and the strands shifted to reveal a dark, oily residue. “Ground Boomslang Heart.”

Filch’s quill scratched furiously across his battered notebook.

“Boomslang Heart, eh? What’s it do?”

Snape folded his arms. “In sufficient quantity, it is toxic. Enough of it’ll burst you from the inside out. A slower death than most would deserve. In smaller doses, it is mildly hallucinogenic. Certain imbeciles mix it into spirits, though it is highly inadvisable.”

Filch’s eyes gleamed. “You got any in your stores, Professor?”

“Yes.”

Snape opened a cabinet with a flick of his wand. Bottles and jars lined the shelves, labels neat as a ledger. He scanned, checked again, then stilled. His face tightened.

“It appears…” he said slowly, “that one bottle is missing.”

Filch scribbled: Boomslang Heart — bottle gone. Didn’t walk out on its own. Somebody lifted it, and somebody’s veins might be payin’ the price.

He held out his hand. “Wand.”

Snape sneered, eyes glittering with contempt, but he laid the hawthorn wand back into Filch’s palm with the air of a man surrendering a crown to a usurper. Filch tucked it away, his voice gravelly with satisfaction.

“Do you have any Veritaserum? Might save some time.”

“Alas… no, my stock is currently depleted. But if you give me my wand back, I could use Legilimency. You’d get your answers quickly.”

Filch narrowed his eyes, and looked at the wand in his hand. “I’m not letting you cast a spell on another person until you’re cleared. Sorry.”

He flipped to a new page in his notebook.

“Right, Professor Snape,” he rasped. “Where were you this morning?”

Snape’s eyes narrowed, dark as storm clouds. “In my office. The entire time. Drafting lesson plans, if you must know.”

Filch scribbled furiously, the quill scratching like claws.

He muttered as he wrote, voice low and gravelly: The suspect sat there like a gargoyle that had learned to sneer. Said he was in his office, said he was scribbling lessons for the brats. But the way his eyes shifted, the way his voice coiled round the words—it sounded less like the truth and more like a potion left too long on the fire. Bubbling. Dangerous.

He looked up at Snape with a thin smile. “Lesson plans, was it? All morning?”

Snape crossed his arms. “Do you require a signed affidavit?”

“Funny thing about offices,” he said. “They’ve got doors. Doors that open. Doors that close. Easy enough to say you never left ’em.”

Snape’s lip curled, but he said nothing. Filch wrote something down anyway.

“That’ll be all for now. Back to the Great Hall. Dust don’t clear itself, not without your wand.”

Filch emerged from the chill gloom of Snape’s dungeon office, clutching his notebook. The torchlight guttered as he started up the stone steps, his knees protesting. At the landing he nearly collided with Dumbledore, who was descending at an uncharacteristic pace, his robes sweeping the ground behind him.

“Ah, Mr. Filch,” Dumbledore said, his voice low but urgent. “I fear we have another urgent matter to attend to. The Sorting Hat is missing.”

Filch froze. “Missing, sir? Tomorrow’s the Sorting Feast.”

“Precisely.” Dumbledore’s blue gaze was grave, though still touched with its habitual twinkle. “Without the Hat, our new first-years will find themselves… unplaced. And Hogwarts without its Houses,” he sighed, “is scarcely Hogwarts at all.”

“Couldn’t you just sort the students yourself?”

Dumbledore considered. “It wouldn’t be ideal. The Sorting Hat examines each first year’s thoughts and memories to determine in which house the student would best suited. To give them every chance to thrive.”

“Why would anyone steal it?” Filch’s quill hovered over his notebook.

“As to that, I could not say. It is a very powerful magical artifact, and used to belong to Godric Gryffindor himself. That alone makes it priceless. There are rumors that Voldemort is after it.”

Filch shuddered at the sound of the name, but recovered quickly. “When was the last time you’d seen it, Professor?”

“I left it in the staff room for Minerva at 9 a.m., when I went to give Professor Thorne his staff orientation.”

Filch’s eyes alight with something like relish. “So we’ve a thief on our hands in addition to a murderer. Could be the same person. Someone inside the castle.”

Dumbledore’s brows drew together. “Someone playing a dangerous game.”

The three stood in the stairwell, the weight of the castle pressing close around them. Somewhere above, a clock chimed twelve, each toll sounding more ominous than the last.

Filch pushed open the doors to the Great Hall, Mrs. Norris darting ahead of him. The vast chamber looked oddly domestic: professors clustered around the staff table, feather dusters abandoned in a forlorn heap near the dais. A large silver platter of sandwiches lay in the center—egg and cress, cucumber, ham, and, most enticingly, bacon butties steaming in neat triangles. Beside them stood a towering urn of tea, sighing out fragrant curls of steam.

Filch’s stomach growled audibly. He realized with a start that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the boarding house early this morning. His fedora tipped forward as he strode up and, without so much as a by-your-leave, seized a bacon butty and bit into it with ravenous satisfaction. Grease slicked his fingers as he reached for a chipped mug of tea and sloshed it half full.

He chewed, swallowed, then spoke through the gravel in his throat: “Listen up, you lot. I’ll be searching the offices and chambers of every last one of you.”

A chorus of protests rose at once—Minerva’s sharp brogue, Sprout’s flustered objections, Flitwick’s squeaky indignation, Sibyll’s dramatic gasp about her “private sanctum.” Snape’s scowl, of course, was eloquent enough all on its own.

Filch wiped his greasy fingers on a napkin and barked, “Save it. One of you’s hiding something, and I mean to find it. Top to bottom, every drawer, every cupboard. Don’t matter how much you whine.”

Dumbledore lifted a calming hand. “Argus is correct. The search is necessary. However, each of you may be present when your own quarters and offices are examined. That much, at least, is fair.”

The protests subsided into grudging silence. Filch smirked, tearing another bite from his sandwich. Authority was a rare flavor, but tonight it tasted like bacon grease and power.

His eyes landed on today’s Daily Prophet, folded and forgotten at the far end of the table. He reached for it with his free hand, leaving a faint smudge of bacon grease on the margin. The front page was full of trifles: a scandal about cauldron thickness standards, and some nonsense about broomstick speed limits. A short piece reported the arrival of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Silas Thorne, a “noted author currently penning a definitive work on the life of Gellert Grindelwald.” Filch snorted. Not so definitive now, was it?

He flipped further, skimming headlines. His eye caught briefly on an article buried halfway down the page—something about the dangers of Legilimency, “a practice of deep mental intrusion.” He made a mental note, then folded the paper under his arm.

Filch drained the last of his tea and straightened, notebook ready in one hand, fedora brim shadowing his eyes. “Right then,” he said. “Eat up while you can. Next stop—your secrets.”

Mrs. Norris twined round his boots, purring like she approved of the hunt.

Chapter Text

Filch licked the last smear of bacon grease from his thumb, his fedora tipped low as if it might hide his satisfaction. He was still savoring the taste of authority when the Great Hall doors groaned open.

In swept Madam Irma Pince, suitcase in one hand, her sharp profile catching the torchlight — she looked like a hawk returning to roost. Madam Pince paused at the threshold, her eyes narrowing as they swept across the professors slumped over their tea and sandwiches. Then she found Filch.

A secret smile ghosted across her lips. One eyebrow arched — barely a flicker, but enough to send a hot pulse into Filch’s ears. He coughed, rising stiffly, and when she reached his side, her fingers brushed against his. He flushed, showing a quick, crooked grin, all yellow teeth and nerves.

“Mr. Filch,” she said, voice smooth as polished oak. “How was your holiday?”

“Don’t worry about that,” he rasped, leaning closer. “There’s been a murder.”

She stiffened, eyes flashing. He wasted no time, summarizing in gravelly bursts: Professor Thorne, found dead in the staffroom, spell residue on the air, poisoned coffee cup, and now — he lowered his voice — “I’m leadin’ the investigation.”

Irma’s lips pursed, then curved into something like approval. “How can I help?”

Filch scratched at his notebook, thinking. “Records. I’ll need a search done. His past — everything. Criminal record. Birthdays. Marriages. Divorces. Hogwarts student files, if he had any. Any Prophet articles with his name. Anything you can dig up.”

She nodded briskly. “Some of that may require the Ministry archives. But I’ll see what I can access.”

For a moment, Filch only studied her — the sharp line of her nose, the firmness of her jaw. Then, almost too quick for courage, he whispered, “Will I see you tonight?”

Her gaze flicked toward him, unreadable — and then softened by the smallest degree. “Ten o’clock. My chambers.”

Filch snapped his notebook shut, hiding the tremor in his hands. Mrs. Norris wound round his boots, purring like she’d just caught the scent of a secret.

Filch spent the next three hours knee-deep in professors’ sanctums, each one promising secrets and delivering little more than dust.

He started in the dungeons, where Snape’s office sat colder than a goblin’s smile. Snape watched him beadily the whole time, but there was nothing but order and gloom.

Sprout’s warren was another world — greenhouse dirt tracked onto every surface, as Filch noted with horror. Filch poked through pots, thumbed through papers, but turned up nothing sharper than a rusty trowel.

Up the tower, he choked on Sibyll’s haze of sherry and incense. Shawls hung thickly over the lamps. He felt like he was being watched as crystal balls stared down at him, and Mrs. Norris nearly knocked over a stack of teacups leaned in a precarious tower. His eye lingered on an ornate green quill sitting prim as you please on her desk, gleaming brighter than the rest of the junk. Still nothing.

Minerva’s office smelled of mothballs and iron discipline. Everything was lined, straight, squared: shelves of Transfiguration texts standing like soldiers, a cupboard of lesson plans labeled to the exact day, a tartan shawl folded sharp over the chair. The neatness made him feel at ease, like all his chores had been done for him. He noticed a black-and-white photograph of a somewhat younger Professor McGonagall in a wedding dress next to a handsome man in dress robes — her husband who had died a decade before. Plant bite, if Filch recalled correctly.

Her chambers weren’t any softer: a narrow bed tucked in tartan, the tall wardrobe strict as a ledger. The top of it, though, was badly in need of dusting. He saw a clean circle where something had sat a long while, in the midst of a thick layer of dust. He made a note to tell Dumbledore the house-elves had neglected their duties. He wondered if a cleaning task would be the most consequential result of his fruitless search.

Finally, the Headmaster’s perch — round, restless, full of silver contraptions sighing and ticking like they were waiting for trains that never came. Nothing there but clutter that knew it was important.

Three hours. Five professors. Not a scrap he could hang a murder on. Filch rubbed his knees, sore from too many stairs, and squinted at his notebook.

A lot of dust, a lot of clutter. No hat. Nothing suspicious. Either they’re saints… or someone’s cleaning better than me.

He snapped the book shut with a crack. That left one office.

If Hogwarts had any answers at all, maybe Filius Flitwick’s cupboards were where they’d been hiding.

He tackled Flitwick’s next, and the little man was just bobbing out of his office when he arrived, his hair shining like polished Sunday shoes. Filch’s eyes narrowed. Hiding something before he arrived to find it, perhaps?

“I’m here to search your office, Professor.” He was significantly more polite than he had been with Snape. Flitwick always treated him like an honored guest. Still he scanned the Charms professor carefully, looking for any hidden contraband that might be concealed on his slight frame.

“Very good, carry on, Mister Filch!” Flitwick was his usual cheery self, but Filch thought he detected some nerves behind the cheer. He watched the man as he stepped back to let Filch in.

Flitwick’s office was neat as a pin, every scroll tied just so, every ink bottle lined up like soldiers on parade. Filch’s sharp eyes, however, knew how to see what didn’t belong — some textbooks pulled out slightly, protruding more than the rest of the row.

There, he finally found something that made his spine tingle. On that shelf, hidden behind the protruding textbooks, sat the missing bottle of Boomslang Heart — empty. It was on its side as if it had been shoved there in a hurry.

Next to it, hidden behind the other books, was an old Hogwarts yearbook, the kind students were always scribbling in next to their photographs. Leafing through it, Filch’s eye lit on an array of photos of Flitwick’s graduating class, the moving figures fidgeting slightly and smiling woodenly for the camera. Filch leaned closer. There he was — young Flitwick, barely reaching the shoulders of his classmates, standing stiff with pride in his Ravenclaw robes. And a few spaces down, in Slytherin green, was Silas Thorne, according to the caption. The victim.

Flitwick shuffled from one foot to the other.

Filch made a note: the little man had cheer in his voice, but poison in his cupboard. And I wasn’t leaving till I knew which was the mask.

“Professor Flitwick,” Filch rasped. “Where were you this morning?”

Flitwick perched on the chair opposite, feet dangling inches above the floor. He clasped his hands primly in his lap, voice bright as a bell. “In here, of course. Lesson plans to prepare, charms to revise before term begins. A busy morning.”

He tapped the empty ingredient bottle. “Funny sort of lesson plan, this.”

Flitwick’s eyes darted toward it, then back up, smile tightening. “Ah — yes. That. A bit of, well, experimentation. Nothing dangerous, I assure you.”

Filch slammed his notebook shut, making Mrs. Norris leap. “Boomslang Heart, Professor. Enough of it, a man’s insides’ll bleed like a burst wineskin. You telling me that’s nothing?”

For a heartbeat, Flitwick’s cheerful mask flickered. Then he laughed — high, nervous, squeaky. “Oh, heavens no! I never brewed anything harmful. Why, it’s positively embarrassing.”

Filch narrowed his eyes. “Embarrassin’, eh? Out with it, then.”

Flitwick hesitated, then blurted, “Hair tonic! For thinning scalps. I’ve been mixing it with dittany and a stabilizing charm. Works wonders, truly, though I’ve had to keep it… quiet.” His small hands fluttered to his crown, where the lamplight glinted off sparse strands.

Filch’s grin crept wolfish. “Brewing this morning, were you?”

Flitwick sagged, the cheer leaking out of him like air from a punctured balloon. “Yes. Alone. Entirely alone. I’m afraid… nobody can confirm it.”

No alibi, Filch scrawled. Door shut tight. Could’ve been brewing hair potion. Could’ve been something darker.

He let the silence stretch, then flipped open the old yearbook he’d found beside the bottle. His finger stabbed the moving photograph of a Slytherin boy with lank hair and a smirk. “Thorne. Same year as you. Don’t tell me you never crossed paths.”

Flitwick’s face pinched. “Yes, we were classmates. But not friends. Quite the opposite.”

Filch shut his notebook with a snap, fedora tipping lower as he fixed the Charms Master with a stare harsh enough to strip varnish. “That’ll do, Professor. For now. But vanity ain’t the only secret hiding in this cupboard.”

Mrs. Norris purred from the shadows. Filch reckoned she agreed.

Chapter Text

At precisely ten minutes to five, the Portkey deposited Poppy Pomfrey in the narrow lane just outside the Three Broomsticks. She landed with the slight stagger of long practice, clutching her satchel close against her hip. A few of her Beauxbatons summer students tumbled down in a jumble beside her, laughing as they straightened their cloaks and re-adjusted their luggage.

“Merci, Madame Pomfrey,” one of them called brightly, clutching a sheaf of parchment covered in neat healing diagrams. “We learned so much.”

She gave them a brisk smile, though her eyes were kind. “Keep practicing the diagnostic charms. And remember, willowbark only tempers fever if it’s steeped properly. Don’t take shortcuts.”

They chorused their goodbyes, and with a last wave they set off down the street. Poppy shifted her satchel higher on her shoulder and turned toward the castle road. The summer air was warm, the sky streaked with the first brush of evening gold. Her boots struck the path with a steady rhythm as she made her way up toward the familiar silhouette of Hogwarts.

It was good to be home.

The road ahead shimmered, and with a squeal of brakes the Knight Bus lurched to a stop just short of Poppy’s toes. She stepped neatly aside, lips pressed in a thin line as the triple-decker wheezed and rocked on its axles.

One by one, the castle’s house-elves poured out of the purple bus, nearly a hundred of them, clutching rolled certificates stamped with the Ministry seal. Their enormous ears flapped merrily in the breeze, their eyes shining with pride as they jostled one another to show off embossed lettering and gold ribbons.

Poppy raised her brows but managed a smile. “Well, I trust the hygiene course was informative?” she said, falling into step beside them.

“Very educational, Madam Pomfrey!” squeaked one tiny elf. “We learned about proper scouring charm safety and the dangers of mold spores in pickling vats!”

“Indeed,” another piped up. “And the instructor said Hogwarts kitchens are some of the cleanest in all Britain.”

“That’s reassuring,” Poppy murmured, though her eyes twinkled. She allowed herself to be swept along in their cheerful tide.

The sun was lowering now, gilding the towers in amber. To Poppy, the scene was almost comforting in its absurdity — a hundred elves, beaming and triumphant, marching back from a Ministry exam like schoolchildren from a holiday outing. For just a moment, it softened her travel-weary heart.

By the time they reached the castle gates, the elves were still chattering merrily among themselves, their certificates held aloft like banners. But at the great oak doors, a thin figure was already waiting.

Filch burst out into the dusk like a man shot from a cannon, his fedora askew, notebook clutched to his chest. Mrs. Norris streaked at his heels, her eyes blazing.

“Stop! Stop, all of you!” he croaked, flapping his arms as though shooing pigeons. The elves froze mid-step, bags and utensils dangling, their large eyes blinking in unison.

“You’re not to touch the staff room,” Filch barked, voice carrying across the courtyard. “Not a rag, not a feather duster, not so much as a polishing charm! There’s been—” He leaned forward, his eyes darting left and right before he whispered fiercely, “—a murder. The staff room is a crime scene.”

The elves gasped as one, the sound like a hundred tea kettles about to boil. Their ears quivered, their fingers tightened on their certificates.

“We swears, Mister Filch, sir,” squeaked the nearest elf, solemn as a judge. “Not a speck shall be touched. Not until you says the word.”

Another piped up, clutching her new towels to her chest. “We is understanding, sir. A murder is no place for cleaning.”

Filch gave a sharp nod, satisfied, and turned at once on Madam Pomfrey, who had stopped dead on the path, her satchel still slung over her arm.

“Madam,” he rasped, his voice suddenly low and urgent. “We need your help. I’ve found the stiff myself, but I need it official. Cause of death. Time of death. All the trimmings.” His eyes gleamed feverishly. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

Poppy blinked at him, taken aback. “Good heavens, Argus—”

“No time, no time,” he interrupted, already hustling toward the door. “Every hour lost, the trail grows colder. The Hat’s missing, and the corpse is cooling fast. You’re the only one can put it in black and white.”

Still startled, she gathered her skirts and followed him inside, the elves bowing their heads and stepping back, their certificates rustling faintly in the silence.

The solemn little army watched her go, and for once, not one elf moved to clean.

With a brisk flick of her wand, Madam Pomfrey summoned a stretcher. The body of Professor Thorne rose gently from the staff room table.

The stretcher floated ahead of them, trailing like a silent parade through the echoing corridors. The castle seemed to know what they carried; the sconces burned lower, the drafts whispered more darkly.

In the hospital wing, Poppy wasted no time. She rolled up her sleeves, set her satchel on the nearest bed, and began flicking through diagnostic charms. Pale light swept across Thorne’s body in layers — green, then blue, then a shimmering violet. She frowned at each shimmer, lips pursing tighter.

At last she lowered her wand. “A cerebral aneurysm,” she said flatly. “A rupture in the blood vessel of the brain. That is what killed him.”

Filch scribbled in his notebook, lips moving as he wrote: Stiff’s brain gave way — like a rotten pipe bursting under pressure.

“Natural, then?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

Pomfrey sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Possibly. Such things can happen without warning. But there are… other causes.”

“Name them.” His quill was already poised, eager.

She gave him a look, but began to list them with clinical precision. “Certain poisons can trigger it. Prolonged use of dangerous stimulants. And,” she hesitated just a moment, “some forms of the Dark Arts. Certain curses. Even poorly executed Legilimency, if forced too hard against a weak mind.”

Filch’s grin was thin, sharp. He scratched it all down: Poison in the veins. Dark magic in the skull. A Legilimens pressing too hard, cracking the shell.

He looked up, eyes gleaming under the brim of his fedora. “So then, Madam — it wasn’t just bad luck. It could’ve been murder.”

Her lips thinned, but she didn’t contradict him.

“And Snape is an expert Legilimens…” Filch mused.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Madam Pomfrey protested. “An inexpert one would do as well to force an aneurysm. Also, he’s hardly the only one here experienced in Legilimency. Dumbledore is as well. Even the Sorting Hat uses Legilimency, to read the minds of the children it’s sorting.”

Filch made a note.

“Is it ok to search the body now?” Filch looked eagerly at the man’s pockets, wondering what clues they might yield.

Madam Pomfrey nodded.

Filch’s thin fingers dipped into the corpse’s inside pocket. He found the dead man’s wand — dark wood, almost glossy with faint ridges running down its length like twisted bark. Its handle was carved into an angular spiral ending in a small silver cap inset with smoky quartz that gleamed faintly in the light.

Filch checked his other inside pocket. A flask of alcohol. He sniffed it. Firewhisky… mixed with something else. Tucked around it was a scrap of parchment — cheap stuff, creased and smudged like someone had handled it too many times.

He unfolded it with care, squinting at the words written in green ink.

“I’ll see you at 10 am. — S.”

That was it. No flowery nonsense. Just a threat, a promise, or a plea — written short, signed with one lonely letter.

He sniffed. “S. Could be Snape, Sprout, Sibyll… Or could be Silas Thorne himself. ‘S’ is never innocent.”

He slipped the note into a fresh envelope from his inner pocket.

Then he patted the stiff down again, methodical as a bloodhound. His hand struck leather — old, soft, and heavy as sin. He pulled the drawstring bag out, squinting at the Gringotts crest pressed in the flap. He upended it on the bedside table.

A small fortune in galleons spilled out and onto the floor — bright as morning, clean as lies.

He counted them. Fifty. A hundred. More.

He debated the coins for a moment — thought about putting them in an envelope, but gave up. Too many. Too noisy. He’d guard them with his life, though. Not because he wanted the gold. Because it was his proof. Proof the castle’s walls were never really clean.

Filch held up the flask of alcohol. “Could you analyze this, Madam Pomfrey?”

She took the flask and cast the same spell Snape had cast on the coffee. The contents of the flask seemed to separate into two constituent parts, a much larger, clear liquid and a dark oily substance that looked familiar.

“Looks like firewhisky and some additive... perhaps ground boomslang heart.”

Pomfrey’s frown deepened as the oily residue shimmered in the bottom of the flask. She set it down sharply, as if it had stung her hand.

“Boomslang, yes. In small doses, mostly harmless. Used recreationally for its hallucinogenic effects. In larger amounts…” She didn’t finish, just gave Filch a grim look.

Filch’s pencil scratched: Flask spiked. Poison or potion? Accident or push?

He leaned closer, his grin curling like parchment on a fire. “So our stiff liked his drink strong enough to kill. Or someone made certain it’d finish him.”

Mrs. Norris hopped onto the bed, tail lashing as she sniffed at the spilled galleons. Her green eyes flashed up at Filch, unblinking.

He tucked the note, the wand, and the flask carefully into his pocket. Then he straightened.

“Well, Madam,” he rasped, “looks like our corpse didn’t just die. He was helped along. And I’ll find the hand that helped him.”

Pomfrey pressed her lips thin but said nothing. The faint hiss of the sconces filled the silence.

Filch turned toward the door, his fedora brim throwing a long shadow across his face. Mrs. Norris padded at his heel.

Chapter Text

The Great Hall gleamed when Argus Filch pushed the doors wide. Chandeliers sparkled, stone floors shone like polished mirrors, and the air smelled faintly of lemon oil and dust. Still, his sharp eye caught what the professors had missed — grime in the corners, a streak on the high windowsill, cobweb threads trembling where ceiling met beam.

“Good enough,” he muttered, scratching a line in his notebook. “The elves’ll tidy the rest tonight.”

The professors were setting aside their feather dusters, rubbing stiff wrists and muttering under their breaths. They looked more like a gang of tired convicts than the finest magical minds in Britain. Mrs. Norris slipped in behind Filch, tail twitching like a pendulum set to suspicion.

Filch strode to the staff table, notebook open, brass nib poised like a dagger. He cleared his throat, gravelly as a broom handle dragged across stone.

“Right then. Each of you. One line.”

Minerva arched a brow. “One line?”

Filch slapped a parchment down on the table. “You’ll write this: I’ll see you at 10 a.m. — S. Exact words. No flourishes, no nonsense. Just like I say.”

Snape sneered but seized the quill first, scrawling with impatient precision. His script, all sharp hooks and razor slashes, looked nothing like the green-ink note in Filch’s pocket. One by one they followed: Dumbledore second; Sprout with her round, earthy loops; Flitwick with neat little strokes; Sibyll with wandering curls that dripped off the page like candlewax.

Filch studied each with the intensity of a man sniffing out rot in a sack of potatoes. He compared them against the folded scrap he’d found in Thorne’s pocket. His heart sank a little further with each mismatch. Not one of them matched the green ink.

He snapped the notebook shut, the sound like a coffin lid slamming.

“Not one of you,” he rasped. “Either the writer ain’t here… or one of you knows how to wear another man’s hand like a mask.”

The staff shifted uneasily. Snape’s lip curled; Minerva’s mouth thinned; Sibyll sighed like tragedy itself.

Filch slipped the note back into his pocket, brim of his fedora shadowing his eyes. Mrs. Norris purred at his heel, as if to say: the trail’s still warm.

Filch returned to his office, withdrew the sack of gold from the pocket of his coat, and set it on his desk. As he was pondering whether the Gringotts goblins could trace whose vault the gold came from, he noticed a stack of papers on his desk with a note:

This is what I’ve found so far. I’ll keep looking — Irma.

Mrs. Norris curled atop the pile like a queen on a paper throne, her tail twitching every time he coughed in the smoke from his guttering candle. Filch picked her up briefly so he could retrieve the top few papers.

They were old Hogwarts disciplinary records. The first page was a summary of disciplinary issues during Silas Thorne’s fifth year.

• Caught brewing illicit potion in abandoned lavatory, November 24, 1967. 1 month of weekly detentions with Albus Dumbledore. 50 points from Ravenclaw.
• Dueling in corridors after curfew, January 16, 1968. 1 week of nightly detentions. 20 points from Ravenclaw.
• Possession of firewhisky, February 2, 1968. 1 night detention with Albus Dumbledore. 10 points from Ravenclaw.
• Persistent bullying of younger students — complaints filed by staff. Multiple infractions.
• Confiscated items April 7, 1968: Cursed quill, vial of Boomslang Heart (controlled substance).

Filch’s quill scratched across his notebook. The stiff had a history. Not just any student — trouble since his school days. Potions, bullying, contraband. Same poison I’ve seen crop up again. Boomslang Heart. Some habits rot so deep, they never stop stinking.

He sat back, chewing the end of the quill. The record told him this much: Silas Thorne had been making enemies at Hogwarts long before he slumped dead over the staff-room table.

Mrs. Norris blinked at him from the heap of parchment, her eyes green coins in the lamplight. Filch gave her a grim smile.

“Looks like our corpse wasn’t just dirty, girl,” he rasped. “He was filthy from the start. And if I know anything, it’s that filth sticks.”

Filch turned another brittle page, the parchment whispering like an old tattletale. More entries, from his third year.

Silas Thorne — Detention, repeated. Bullying incidents. Victims noted: Flitwick, F., and others.

Filch scratched his head, thinking. So, the stiff wasn’t just a bully — he had favorites. Picked on the small ones. The Charms master shows up again and again. Flitwick’s name inked here more often than dust on a windowsill.

His lips curled. He could see it — a scrawny Ravenclaw boy, books clutched to his chest, while a lank-haired Slytherin sneered down at him, hexes itching at his fingertips.

Filch leaned back in his chair, notebook open, fedora casting a long shadow across the page.

He tapped the paper with a grimy finger. “So,” he muttered to Mrs. Norris, who had rolled onto her back and was pawing lazily at the air, “our corpse made a career out of torment. And Professor Flitwick? He’s been on the wrong end of it since schooldays. That’s a long memory for a grudge.”

He wrote one line in his battered notebook, the quill carving it deep enough to score the page beneath:

Victim: Thorne, Silas. Bully. Dark magic. Flitwick’s scars go back decades. Motive doesn’t get clearer than that.

Filch leaned back, letting his eyes wander over the chaos he’d cultivated through the years. Boxes stacked high, labels peeling, hats and toys confiscated from generations of brats. Shackles gleamed faintly in the corner, well-oiled and waiting for a day that never came. His gaze snagged on one box tower, slumped against the wall like a drunk.

At the top sat a hat box.

He frowned. He didn’t remember putting it there. His eyes narrowed. He’d been in and out of this office every day for years — he knew every scratch in the stone, every box leaning the wrong way. And yet here was a hat box, plain as a wart on a nose, just waiting for him to notice.

He shuffled over, muttering under his breath, and bent close. A brass plate caught the light. Two letters glared back at him, neat and sharp as if mocking his ignorance: M G.

His breath rasped in his throat. “M. G… Minerva McGonagall?”

The fedora slipped lower on his brow as he set his jaw. With fingers that had scrubbed decades’ worth of student muck off flagstones, he popped the latch.

The smell hit him first — mothballs, sharp and sour, clinging like old ghosts. He lifted the lid and there it was: the Sorting Hat, battered brim slouched to one side, looking for all the world like it had just been dozing instead of hiding in his office.

He leaned close, eyes narrowed to slits. “Right then, Hat. You’ve been skulking about where you weren’t meant to be. You saw something, didn’t you?” His voice rasped low, the kind of growl that usually made first-years quake.

The brim twitched. A slow, wheezy voice uncoiled into the office, carrying the weight of centuries… but in song.

“Oh, I’ve sorted many heads before,
From bold to meek, from rich to poor.

"I’ve heard secrets none could hear,
And kept them safe year after year.

"The clever plotter, sly and keen,
The lion’s heart, the serpent’s scheme.

"The loyal friend, the seer’s eye,
The villain cloaked in teacher’s guise.

"But some who press me to their brow,
I weigh their deeds — ask why, and how.

"A hidden fault, a secret seen,
Change the course where I have been.”

Filch froze, quill halfway to the page. His eyes darted over the words, trying to trap meaning like mice in a cellar. “You daft rag,” he muttered. “That’s no answer. Riddles and rhymes — nothin’ a man can hang his hat on.”

The brim sagged shut, as if the Hat had fallen back asleep.

Mrs. Norris hissed softly, tail lashing, her eyes green and sharp as knives in the lamplight.

Filch scowled, scribbling a bitter note in his book: Sorting Hat planted in my office. Interrogated Hat. Produced a song. Useless. Nonsense verses. Trust a hat to sing when you ask for straight talk. Same as wizards.

He snapped the notebook closed. “I’ll make sense of your rambling later, you flea-bitten bonnet. Mark me.”

He shoved the box back into the corner, though the words clung to him like cobwebs even as he turned away.

Chapter Text

The Sorting Hat sat heavy in Filch’s hands, smelling of mothballs and centuries of secrets. He set it down on Dumbledore’s desk with a grunt, brushing the brim as though it might bite.

Dumbledore’s long fingers lifted it gently, relief softening the lines around his eyes. “Well done, Argus. You’ve returned to me one of Hogwarts’s oldest treasures. Tomorrow’s feast may proceed as tradition requires.”

Filch adjusted his fedora, scowling. “Hat weren’t sittin’ where it ought. Turned up in my own office, boxed and labeled M.G. as if it belonged to the Deputy. That smells like a frame-up to me, sir. Or worse.”

“Troubling indeed.” Dumbledore stroked the battered brim, then looked up. “And your investigation?”

Filch snapped open his notebook, the pages crackling. He rattled off in gravelly tones: “Boomslang Heart, gone missin’. Empty bottle found in Flitwick’s cupboard. Note around a flask in Thorne’s pocket, signed ‘S.’ Gold stashed on the corpse — more than a hundred Galleons. Brown fibers pulled from the carpet. And the spell residue you found on the staff room table. Duel took place, no mistake.”

Dumbledore nodded gravely. “You have gathered much, Argus.” Then, with a sigh: “The staff are growing… restless. They need their wands to secure the castle for the evening. They have gone a full day without magic, and it has not been easy for them.”

Filch’s lips curled. “One day without wands and they’re moanin’ like orphans in winter. They should try spendin’ a life in my shoes. See how it feels to scrub floors with nothin’ but elbow grease.”

“Perhaps.” Dumbledore’s voice was mild, but his eyes twinkled with something sharper.

Filch slammed the notebook shut. “But it’d be reckless, wouldn’t it? Handin’ back a wand to a murderer. You’ve seen the spell residue with your own eyes. Somebody dueled Thorne in that room, and Thorne didn’t walk away.”

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “There is a method. Priori Incantatem. By drawing forth the most recent spells cast with a wand, we might learn who last engaged in combat.”

Filch narrowed his eyes. “Convenient. But to do it, you’ll need your wand in hand. Doesn’t exactly clear you, does it?”

“True,” Dumbledore said calmly. Then his voice took on a measured gravity. “But Madam Pomfrey may perform the spell. On my wand. On all of them, if need be. And on the victim’s wand, if you have found it. That way you may see the truth for yourself.”

Filch considered this, scratching his chin. Mrs. Norris leapt onto the desk and curled up beside the Sorting Hat, her green eyes never leaving Dumbledore’s.

At last Filch growled, “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But mark me, Headmaster — if one of those sticks spits out a duel with Thorne, I’ll have the culprit trussed before you can say ‘Expelliarmus.’”

Dumbledore inclined his head, almost like a bow. “Then let us begin.”

The hospital wing smelled of antiseptic herbs and cool stone. Madam Pomfrey stood waiting beside the silent figure of Professor Thorne, her sleeves rolled, her lips pressed thin.

Filch shuffled in with Dumbledore and the line of weary professors trailing behind. Mrs. Norris streaked to the bed and sat prim at the foot, tail lashing like a metronome of judgment.

“Madam,” Dumbledore said quietly, “we require your help. Argus is… reluctant to return the professors’ wands until he is certain they have not been used in foul play. I suggested Priori Incantatem.”

Pomfrey arched a brow but said nothing. Instead she flicked her wand briskly, summoning a long table into the space between beds. “Line them up, then.”

Filch clutched the confiscated wands close to his chest like evidence bags. One by one, he set them down with a thunk, his notebook already open at his elbow.

Pomfrey began. She picked up the victim’s wand and pointed her wand at it. “Priori Incantatem.” A wave of directed energy emerged and struck Minerva. For a moment her eyes glazed over, and then she shook it off.

Snape looked startled. “Imperio Obruo Memoriae… an invention of Silas Thorne. An improved version of the Imperius curse that implants a false memory in the victim. Even when the curse is lifted, the victim won’t remember being imperiused or any actions they took while the curse was in effect.”

Filch looked at him suspiciously. “And how are you so well-informed on the victim’s spell craft.”

Snape looked furious. “That’s my business.”

There was a moment of silence as the assembled contemplated the ramifications of such a spell before Dumbledore interjected. “Let’s move on.”

“So the deputy was imperiused and doesn’t remember it. To do what, I wonder.” Filch stared hard at McGonagall, who looked stunned. “But as the head says, let’s move on.”

She picked up Dumbledore’s wand, cast the spell, and a silvery echo shimmered into the air: an image of the Sorting Hat tumbling gently through the air into her hand.

“A Summoning Charm,” Pomfrey confirmed. “Summoned from a high shelf.”

Next was Flitwick’s. A flick of Pomfrey’s wrist, and the air shimmered with a tiny dancing flame — the kind used to keep a cauldron simmering.

“Fire charm. Harmless, standard. Potion work.”

Sibyll’s wand produced a wobbling shimmer: a crystal ball clinking down where an empty sherry bottle had been.

“Transfiguration. Bottle into orb.”

Snape’s wand, when tested, sent a ripple of gleaming cleanliness across the table, wiping away a thin layer of dust Filch hadn’t even noticed. He scowled.

“Scourgify,” Pomfrey said flatly.

Then Pomfrey picked up Sprout’s wand. A shimmer, and the air hushed itself as though a bell jar had dropped over the room. For a moment, sound dulled; then it snapped back sharp as before.

“Silencio,” Pomfrey announced.

Finally, Minerva’s.

Pomfrey raised it, flicked — and the air split open in a roar. Fire burst forth, flaring white-hot before sputtering into smoke.

The room froze.

Pomfrey lowered the wand slowly. “An offensive fire curse,” she said tightly. “A powerful one.”

Filch turned towards Dumbledore. “And does this match the spell residue left at the scene.”

The headmaster mutely nodded.

Filch’s quill dug into the page as he took a note. The scratch of his writing was the only sound in the wing. The professors looked to Minerva.

Her jaw tightened. “If you think a single curse proves murder, Mr. Filch, then you know even less of magic than I feared.”

Filch snapped his notebook shut with a crack like a judge’s gavel. His eyes gleamed under the brim of his fedora.

“We’ll see about that, Professor,” he rasped, voice low as gravel. “From where I’m standing, it looks like one of you isn’t so innocent after all.”

Chapter Text

“All right, Professor,” Filch said. He kept his voice lower than usual — as if trying the exclude the rest of the people in the room. “You’d better answer a few questions. Quick as you like.”

Minerva’s mouth was a line. “Very well, Mr. Filch. Let’s go to my office.”

“Just a minute, Filch,” Snape snarled. “What about returning our wands.”

Filch reluctantly handed them back, except for Professor McGonagall’s.

He followed Minerva to her office. Mrs. Norris slipped inside ahead of him, tail high, and the little cat’s green eyes took in the room with the exacting appraisal of a constable.

Minerva McGonagall sat down at her desk warily. Her tartan shawl was folded neat over the chairback, the mothball smell clung faintly to the air, and a small black-and-white photograph in a silver frame leaned against a pile of marked essays. Filch’s eye snagged on it immediately: A younger Minerva in a wedding dress beside a handsome man in dress robes, both smiling with an intimacy that surprised him. She followed his gaze and touched the frame with a small, almost apologetic motion.

He dropped onto the visitor’s chair opposite, flipped his notebook open and set the brass nib to the paper. “So, you were imperioused and your memory modified. So, you’ll forgive me, professor, if I take whatever you tell me with a grain of salt.”

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips, but said, “A wise precaution.”

“As far as you remember, where were you this morning, and what did you see?”

She folded her hands, eyes steady. “I met Professor Thorne at the castle gates when he arrived. I escorted him to his rooms — he left his trunk in a side chamber to be taken to his chambers — and then showed him to the staff room to wait for Professor Dumbledore, who was to give him his orientation.” Her voice was clipped, precise, like the rules of Transfiguration itself.

“And then?” Filch prompted.

Minerva’s jaw tightened; she set her fingers on the photograph and would not meet his eyes. “We dueled. I remember that clearly.”

Filch blinked. “Go on.”

“Yes.” Her voice was composed but the syllable carried weight. “A short thing. Words were exchanged. He was… arrogant. He goaded the staff. I demanded he stop his taunting, and he refused. The duel was contained — letters of complaint may follow, but I can assure you no grievous harm was intended.” She looked at him then, and for a beat something like old sorrow flickered through her eyes. “He was alive when I left him in the staff room, Mr. Filch.”

Filch scratched that down. “Why duel? You two had… some beef?”

Minerva’s fingers closed around the old photograph, her eyes becoming moist. “He had played wizard’s chess with my husband, Elphinstone, earlier that afternoon.” She drew in a small breath. “They played in the library, from what I have been told. Afterwards Elphenstone fell ill. An inquest recorded his death as the result of a venomous tentacula bite — there was one in the room, but it was very tame and well-behaved. I accepted the verdict at the time, because that is what families do when faced with an explanation. We closed the book.”

Filch’s quill paused. “But you think Thorne killed him.”

“I do.” The words were quiet but absolute. “My husband was no fool. He would not have handled a tentacula carelessly. And as I said before, it was very tame and had never bitten anyone before. They argued during the game, I am told. Later there were rumours — whispers of Death Eater sympathies, of old loyalties to dark circles. He had the kind of past one cannot easily ignore.” Her hand tightened on the frame until the silver edge creaked. “He was never held to account. I never had proof. I have had a private conviction for years that he escaped justice.”

“You say you heard they argued. Heard from whom? Were there witnesses?”

“Our house-elf, Pippy. She works at Hogwarts now.”

Filch’s quill skittered as he wrote it all down. He looked up. “Why come forward now? Why confront him today?”

Minerva’s chin lifted. “He insulted my colleagues. He made a mockery of our house and our standards. He sought to play the school and its people against one another from his first hour here. I warned him. He mocked me. The duel was meant to chastise him, nothing more.” She met Filch’s eyes, steel beneath the tartan. “I did not kill him. Ask Dumbledore. He must have seen Professor Thorne alive after I left… when he dropped off the sorting hat.”

Filch studied her, trying to read for evasion and finding only restrained, hard sorrow. He felt the clues so far tug at something in his head; connections teased at the edges of the notes in his book. But he kept to the facts.

”Where did you go after the staff room? At least so far as you remember.”

“I do remember him casting a spell at the end of the duel. It must have been the imperious curse. After that, all I remember is returning to my rooms,” Minerva said. “I prepared some notes for the first-year lesson and then walked alone in the corridor for a while.” Her voice clipped off like a blade sheathed.

Filch made a small, sour noise. “No alibi,” he murmured, noting it down. “You had motive, you had opportunity… and you dueled. You’ll forgive me if the facts make your name look troublesome on paper.”

“But I was imperioused. Why would someone imperious another person in order to kill him?”

Filch grunted and made another note.

Minerva neither flinched nor pleaded. Instead she looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with stairs and paperwork. “Additionally, Mr. Filch, I have taught generations of students to choose the right thing even when it is hard. I would not break the law I have sworn to uphold.” She put a hand to the photograph again, and for a second the shield of the professor slid aside, leaving the woman behind. “He was my husband, Argus. If you were me, if you had to live with what I have lived with — and you saw him arrive with that smirk — you would understand why words run thin.”

Filch watched the small, controlled grief on her face and found himself making a different sort of note in his head. Motive was strong, and emotion was real, but motive is not proof, he told himself out loud. He tapped the pen on the page.

“One more thing. The sorting hat has been found — in a hatbox in my office, of all places. A hatbox with the initials M. G. Know anything about that?”

Minerva got up and opened the door to her bedroom. She cast her eyes up at the wardrobe. His lips tightened, but she met his stare squarely. “Yes, Mr. Filch. I fear it is mine. The box, at least. Part of a set of luggage my husband gave me years ago. I see that it is missing from its usual spot.”

Her eyes flicked briefly toward the old wedding photograph on her shelf. “I kept the set for sentimental reasons. But as for how it came to be in your office, I cannot say. And why the Sorting Hat was inside it— I can only assume that I moved it while I was imperioused. But, I have no idea why.” She shook her head, tartan sleeve brushing the edge of the desk. “I am as astonished as you.”

Filch’s quill scratched harder. “Strange, though, isn’t it? Smells like a frame-up. Or worse.”

Minerva’s mouth thinned. “Perhaps it does. But if you are hoping for a confession, Mr. Filch, I cannot oblige you. I have no memory of putting the hat in the box, or of depositing it in your office.”

“All right, Professor,” he said finally, rising and handing her back her wand. “You’ll stay available. Don’t wander off. And —” he hesitated, sheepish for the first time since the hat — “don’t burn the place down until I’ve finished asking my questions.”

Minerva let a tiny, almost imperceptible smile flicker. “I should hope not,” she said dryly. Then, quieter: “If you discover anything about my husband’s death, Argus, please tell me. I have lived with this for a long time; I would sleep easier knowing the truth.”

He closed his notebook with a soft thwap, the fedora shadowing his face. Mrs. Norris rubbed against his leg and looked up at him, inscrutable.

Filch left the room with more on his list than he’d had coming in: a duel, a motive that stank of old blood, a photograph that anchored a woman’s grief. He padded down the corridor and, for once, did not try to make a wisecrack about housekeeping.

Chapter Text

Filch checked his battered pocket watch. 9:00. The castle was in shadow, the last light of evening having bled out over the horizon an hour ago. His meeting with Irma wasn’t until ten. That left him with time enough to poke at a few more leads.

He tapped the watch face, thinking. The sack of gold on his desk weighed on him heavier than stone. If anyone could trace its origin, it’d be the goblins. Trouble was, it was long past business hours. Then again—he’d heard goblins kept strange hours. Perhaps, just perhaps, they’d still be working.

Decision made, Filch shuffled into his office, pulled the grate open, and tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the fire. The flames roared emerald. He jammed his head forward and barked, “Gringotts!”

The green whirl spun and steadied. Stone vaults loomed behind the smoke. Filch cleared his throat and shouted into the void, “Hallo? Anyone there? I’ve got urgent business!”

For a long moment, nothing. Just the hiss of the flames. Then a sharp, pinched face appeared, eyes like black flint. A goblin scowled at him.

“You disturb the bank after hours,” the goblin said flatly. “Gringotts is closed.”

Filch rasped, “This here’s no routine deposit. I found a sack of gold at a crime scene, and I want to know whose vault it came from.”

The goblin’s eyes narrowed. “Client confidentiality is absolute. We will not violate it for the likes of you. Come back during business hours.”

Filch’s voice dropped lower, grittier. “You either help me now, or you’ll have the Ministry crawling over your counters tomorrow, askin’ all the wrong questions and blockin’ your vault doors with paperwork. You know how they are. Nothing moves once they’ve stuck their quills in. You want that headache?”

The goblin’s lips curled, sharp as a knife edge. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then: “Leave the gold with us. We will see what can be done.”

Filch pulled his head from the fire, went to the desk, and hefted the Gringotts-marked sack. The coins inside clinked accusingly. He jammed it back through the Floo. The goblin’s hand snatched it quick as a trap snapping shut.

“You’ll have your answer tomorrow,” the goblin said coldly. “Nine o’clock sharp. Not before.”

The flames winked out, leaving Filch’s hearth dark and dead. He stood there in the chill silence, soot on his cuffs, the faint smell of floo powder smoke still lingering in his nose. Mrs. Norris twined round his ankles, tail lashing like she didn’t trust the deal one bit.

Filch tugged his fedora lower, notebook under his arm. “Nine a.m., then,” he muttered. “We’ll see whose vault bleeds.”

Filch sat in his office chair, reviewing the evidence so far. If only there were witnesses to who came in and out of the staff room that morning, his job would be a lot easier. Then he smacked himself on the forehead. Of course there were witnesses — three portraits in the corridor outside. One of them must have seen something.

Filch stalked the corridor outside the staffroom, notebook in hand, fedora tipped low. The portraits lining the walls were unusually rowdy: Bottles clinked, laughter rang out, and a lute player strummed something so off-key it made Mrs. Norris flatten her ears.

“Oi,” Filch rasped. “Any of you lot see who went into this room this morning?”

A chorus of drunken giggles answered him. One wizard in a moth-eaten doublet hiccupped, sloshing wine onto the frame. “We’re having a party, caretaker. End of summer! Can’t be bothered with your gloomy questions.”

Filch glared, quill poised. “Either you tell me what you saw, or I’ll see to it this corridor don’t get dusted ‘til Christmas.”

That got a few nervous mutters. At last, a lady in a high ruff leaned forward, breath smelling of sherry even across the canvas. “I saw him,” she slurred, pointing a painted finger. “The man in the big blue hat — went in with Professor McGonagall. They argued, loud as thunder. There were loud noises also — spells, most likely. Then she stormed out, tartan flying.”

“What time was that then?”

“18th century portraits don’t tend to wear timepieces, darling.” The high ruff lady purred.

Filch sighed but scribbled furiously: Blue hat enters with Minerva. Quarrel. She exits alive, stiff still standing.

Another portrait butted in, cheeks flushed from drink. “I saw Dumbledore go in after that, carrying the Sorting Hat.” She frowned, trying to recall. “Looked very important, that did.”

More scribbles: Headmaster enters. Hat in hand.

Filch narrowed his eyes. “Anyone else?”

The drunk in the doublet waved his tankard vaguely. “Three others, I think. First Professor Sprout, looking furious. There were the sounds of a row. Then.. Professor Snape. Then one other. A Shape in the corridor. Couldn’t say who. We were in the middle of a limerick contest, you see.”

The lute player broke off his song and recited his entry.

“There once was a witch from Kildare,
Who enchanted each curl of her hair.
With a wink and a grin,
She’d pull young wizards in,
Till they all left their trousers elsewhere!”

“Useless,” Filch growled. “And then?”

“Oh, then you went in,” said the lady in the ruff brightly. “And after that, everybody came piling in. Quite a crowd.”

Filch snapped his notebook shut with a thwap. “I don’t care about that part.” Mrs. Norris hissed in agreement, tail lashing.

The lute player struck up another discordant chord. Filch glowered at the lot of them. “Next time I ask, you’d better remember more than bad poetry.”

He stalked off down the corridor, growling under his breath. Drunk portraits. Lousy witnesses. Still— five visitors: Minerva, Dumbledore, Sprout, Snape, and one other. A busy morning for a dead man.

Filch rapped twice on the door, heart hammering in a way he would never admit to another living soul. It creaked open on the stroke of ten.

Irma Pince stood framed in the doorway — not the hawk-eyed librarian, but a woman transformed. Her hair spilled in dark waves past her shoulders, candlelight catching the auburn strands. The gown she wore was low-cut, clinging, utterly unlike the high collars and pinched cuffs Filch was used to seeing. For once her eyes weren’t narrowed in suspicion but half-lidded, feline, and inviting.

“Argus,” she purred, her voice lower than anyone other than him ever heard it. “Right on time.”

Filch swallowed hard, his throat dry. He had faced down blood on a staffroom carpet and spell residue that reeked of dark magic, but this… this unnerved him more than a stiff in a chair.

Her quarters glowed golden with candlelight. A small table stood set for two, silver cloches domed over steaming plates, cutlery polished to a gleam. The scent of roast lamb drifted under the covers, mingling with wax and perfume.

Filch’s grin split across his face as he stepped inside. He swung the door shut behind him with more force than necessary, then turned the key in the lock.

“Well, well,” he rasped, tipping his fedora onto the nearest chair. “Looks like the librarian’s got more secrets than the Restricted Section.”

Chapter Text

Filch crept out of Irma’s chambers at the crack of dawn, the door shutting behind him with a soft click that sounded louder than a cannon in his ears. He tugged his fedora low, hunched his shoulders, and stole down the corridor like a schoolboy caught out of bounds. The last thing he wanted was the staff catching him in so compromising a position — though a part of him, the part still humming from candlelight and whispered laughter, almost wished they would.

The portraits outside the staff room were fast asleep, their revelry spent. One snored like a bear, mouth slack, wine still dripping faintly from the painted rim of his goblet. Another mumbled fragments of limericks into her ruff. Filch scowled at the lot of them, half-tempted to wake them with a broom handle, then thought better of it. Let them sleep it off. Witnesses weren’t worth a knut if they couldn’t keep sober.

His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since last night’s supper. He detoured to the kitchens, where the elves already had a bacon butty waiting on a chipped plate. They knew his habits too well. He muttered a gruff thanks and bit into it as he walked, grease warming his fingers, salt and smoke steadying his nerves.

By the time he reached his own quarters, Mrs. Norris was twining around his ankles, purring like she’d been waiting all night. Filch shut the door, dropped his notebook on the desk, and stretched out on his narrow bed. The sack of Gringotts gold still weighed on his mind, heavy as judgment. He shut his eyes, though his mind ticked on like a restless clock.

Nine o’clock, the goblin had said. That was when the vault would give up its secret.

He folded an arm under his head, listening to Mrs. Norris settle at his feet. “Wake me in time, girl,” he muttered. His eyes drifted shut. Sleep came fitfully, heavy with bacon and worry.

Mrs. Norris leapt onto the bed and planted both paws squarely on Filch’s chest. Her claws pricked through his shirt just enough to drag him out of a muddled dream. He cracked one bloodshot eye and groaned. The pocket watch on the nightstand ticked accusingly: Quarter past nine.

“Blasted cat,” he muttered, though he scratched her ears all the same. “All right, all right. Business waits for no man.”

He sat up, bones creaking like door hinges, and tugged on a fresher shirt and trousers. The fedora went on last, tilted low, the brim shadowing eyes that hadn’t slept nearly enough.

At the grate he struck a match, tossed in a pinch of Floo powder, and barked, “Gringotts!” The fire roared emerald, and the cold stone vaults spun into view.

The same goblin appeared, eyes hard as slate. Without a word, he reached into the green glow and thrust the sack of gold back through. Filch caught it, nearly dropping it with the weight.

“We have traced your request,” the goblin said, voice clipped, professional. “The coins’ serial numbers match withdrawal ledgers. Vault sixty-four.” His gaze sharpened, black as knives. “The owner: Severus Snape.”

Filch’s breath rasped. He clutched the sack tighter, as though it might sprout fangs. Mrs. Norris hissed softly from the hearthrug, tail lashing.

The goblin’s image flickered, then dissolved back into smoke and cinders. The fire went out, leaving Filch alone in the chill gloom of his office.

He stared at the bag of gold as if it might answer for itself. Slowly, he opened his notebook, the brass nib scratching the words into permanence: Vault 64 — Snape. Gold on the corpse.

Filch tugged his fedora lower, eyes gleaming. “Looks like the greasy bat’s pockets are heavier than he lets on,” he muttered. “And I mean to know why.”

Filch didn’t waste time. Notebook tucked under one arm, sack of gold clutched in his fist, he stormed down into the dungeons, his boots striking sparks off the stone. Mrs. Norris padded silently at his heels, her green eyes glowing in the torchlight.

He pounded on Snape’s office door with the side of his fist. The door flew open a moment later, Snape’s black eyes flashing, his lip already curling.

“What now, Filch?” he snarled. “If this is about dust on the flagstones—”

He stopped short when he saw the sack dangling from Filch’s bony hand, the Gringotts crest glinting in the torchlight.

Filch shoved it forward like an executioner’s axe. “This gold,” he rasped. “Traced it. Straight from Vault Sixty-Four. Yours. And funny thing — it weren’t sittin’ in your vault when I found it. It was stuffed in the dead man’s pocket. What’s more, a portrait saw you going into the staff room yesterday morning.”

Snape’s eyes flicked to the sack, then back to Filch, narrowing. His face shuttered, voice low and dangerous. “That is a private matter. Between myself and Thorne. It has no bearing on his death.”

Filch’s grin was yellow and wolfish. “Private, eh? You’ll forgive me if I decide which facts matter in a murder inquiry. Not you.” He snapped open his notebook, brass nib poised. “So why was your gold found on his corpse?”

Snape’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer at once, only stared, his black eyes glittering like wet coal. Mrs. Norris hissed at the silence, tail lashing against the stone.

Filch leaned in, voice low and gravelly, the brim of his fedora casting his eyes into shadow. “You can sneer and sulk all you like, but I’ve got hard proof, Professor. Gold don’t crawl into a corpse’s pocket on its own. So either you paid him, or he stole it from you. Which is it?”

Snape’s lip curled, but he held his tongue. He stood like a statue of obsidian, giving Filch nothing but silence.

“Payment for services rendered? Bribery? Blackmail?”

At the last word, there was a flicker of something on Snape’s face before he smoothed his features again.

“If you think I’d explain myself to a squib with a notebook, you’re more deluded than usual.” He snarled. And then he slammed the door in Filch’s face.

Filch scrawled a bitter line in his notebook: Refuses to talk. Secrets still under lock and key.

Mrs. Norris hissed softly from the corner, as if she shared her master’s opinion: Secrets always left a stink.

Chapter Text

Rita Skeeter arrived at Hogwarts like a bad idea in good shoes.

Her robes were Ministry-chic and two shades too bright for the hour, hair lacquered into obedient curls, and on her shoulder perched a crocodile-skin handbag large enough to smuggle a small dragon or a scandal. The Quick-Quotes Quill clamped between her fingers twitched as if eager to bite.

Coming up from the dungeons, Filch spotted her striding across the Entrance Hall, perfume and ambition arriving a full second before she did. Mrs. Norris flattened her ears. Filch adjusted his fedora, already feeling the headache.

“Mr. Filch,” Rita trilled, voice sugared and sharp. “Be a dear and escort me to your staff room. I’m frightfully late for a ten o’clock interview with Professor Silas Thorne.” Her smile showed careful teeth. “He’s writing a book about Grindelwald, and I’m writing an article about men who write books about Grindelwald.”

“Is he now,” Filch rasped. “And you’re a bit late for more than an interview.”

The quill on her hand stuttered, turned, and hovered over a small notepad. Rita’s eyes narrowed behind her rhinestone frames. “Meaning?”

“Meaning your man’s a stiff.” Filch jerked his chin toward the corridor. “Found him yesterday. Hospital wing now. The staff room’s a crime scene. No one goes in.”

Rita blinked once, twice—then the smallest, most delighted spark lit at the edge of her gaze. On the pad, the quill had already begun to write in acid green flourishes: TRAGEDY STRIKES HOGWARTS: BRILLIANT SCHOLAR SILENCED ON EVE OF REVELATIONS—

Filch stared at the quill. He could have sworn he’d seen a quill just like that recently.

“Put that thing away,” Filch growled.

“Journalistic record, darling.” She flicked her wrist; the quill drew a final curlicue and paused, trembling. “How dreadful. Of course I’m distraught. But, alas, I have a deadline.” She leaned in, all sympathy and teeth. “Do allow me a peek at the scene. For the historical record.”

“No.”

“Headmaster Dumbledore wouldn’t refuse me.” She turned, already angling toward the gargoyle staircase.

“He will today.” Filch stepped neatly into her path. “He put me in charge of the investigation. The answer’s still no.”

Rita’s smile thinned. “A Squib with jurisdiction. How… modern.” The quill scratched: HOGWARTS EMBRACES PROGRESS; SECURITY LED BY NON-MAGICAL STAFF— She snapped her fingers; it stopped.

“Darling,” she said, drawing out the words until they dripped with honey. “How about an interview with Professor Sprout.”

Filch blinked at her. “Sprout? What for? She didn’t find the stiff, I did. You want statements, you take ’em from me.”

Rita’s smile widened, all teeth. “Oh, Mr. Filch. You truly don’t know? How delicious.” She leaned in, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial purr. “Silas Thorne was her ex-husband. Acrimonious split, everyone said. Papers filed with the Ministry’s Magical Marital Office, sealed tighter than a dragon’s hoard. But one does hear things…”

Filch gawked, notebook already half-open. “Ex-husband, you say?”

“Mm-hmm.” Rita’s nails clicked on her handbag. “And the divorce was… spirited, let’s call it. He kept her Kneazle, she hexed his broom, and rumor has it she cursed his pumpkin patch sterile for a decade. Oh, it will make delightful copy. Especially if it’s an interview with a murderer.”

She said the word with relish, her quill scratching it down even before the last syllable left her lips.

Filch’s grin stretched slow and crooked. He scrawled furiously in his notebook: Professor Sprout — motive personal. Divorce acrimonious. Victim ex-husband. Suspect grows out of the dirt same as her plants. Murder seeds sown long ago.

Mrs. Norris gave a throaty purr.

Filch left Rita Skeeter in the entrance hall for someone else to deal with and tramped down the stone path toward the greenhouses, notebook under one arm, fedora tipped low enough to keep the late-afternoon sun out of his eyes. Mrs. Norris stalked at his heels, tail twitching in time with his muttering.

Ahead, hulking and broad as a shed with legs, Hagrid was wrangling the last of the boats into place by the lake’s edge. A line of carriages waited behind him, and a paddock held Thestrals stamping and tossing their heads. The smell of wet leather, hay, and horse hung heavy in the air.

“Hagrid,” Filch rasped, narrowing his eyes. “Back from yer holiday, are yeh?”

The half-giant turned, beaming under his wild mane of hair. “Aye, jus’ early this morning. Wales, it was. Dragon-watching with a couple o’ the lads. Beautiful creatures — one o’ the Welsh Greens even let me close enough ter see the shine on her scales.”

Filch’s quill scratched in his head before he even got the notebook open. Vacation in Wales. Dragons. He squinted suspiciously, folding his arms. “You didn’t bring one back, did you? A hatchling stuffed in a trunk, maybe? Wouldn’t put it past you.”

Hagrid barked a laugh, so loud the Thestrals flicked their ears. “What’d I do that for? Can’t fit a dragon in a trunk, Filch. Not without a bit o’ charring.” He chuckled at his own joke, but the caretaker’s face stayed carved in suspicion.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Filch muttered. “This castle’s seen worse smuggled in. And I’ll tell you summat else — there’s been a murder.”

That shut Hagrid’s laugh off like a slammed door. “M-murder?” he stammered.

Filch jabbed a finger back toward the castle. “Professor Silas Thorne. Found him stiff in the staff room, slumped over like a rotten sack o’ grain. That room’s a crime scene now, so keep yer muddy boots out of it.”

Hagrid shifted from one boot to the other, big hands wringing his coat hem. “Er. Well. Yeh see… funny thing, that.”

Filch’s eyes narrowed to slits. Mrs. Norris froze mid-step, tail twitching like a divining rod. “What d’you mean, funny thing?”

Hagrid cleared his throat, gaze sliding toward the lake. “I… might’ve popped in ter the staffroom earlier. Jus’ ter say hullo. Been away, yeh see. Thought I’d catch up wi’ everyone.”

Filch’s rasp rose to a wheeze. “You what?”

“Aye,” Hagrid admitted, voice sheepish. “I tracked a bit o’ mud in, prob’ly. Didn’t mean no harm. Place was empty, so I thought I’d put the kettle on. Made meself a cuppa. Left a splash o’ tea on the counter, maybe. Didn’t see no corpse, though. Not a soul.”

Filch clutched his notebook to his chest like a holy text, eyes bugging under the fedora brim. He could see it now: muddy prints all over his pristine crime scene, tea rings bleeding across the evidence. His pencil flew across the page, carving each word like a curse.

Scene compromised. Big oaf blundered in. Mud tracked across the floor, tea brewed. Evidence trampled under size twenty-five boots. Typical.

Mrs. Norris hissed her agreement.

Filch snapped the notebook shut, face sour enough to curdle milk. “Well, congratulations, Hagrid. If there was a clue left, it’s under your muddy bootprints by now.”

Hagrid looked properly abashed, scratching at his beard. “Sorry, Filch. Didn’t know.”

“No, you didn’t,” Filch rasped, tugging the fedora lower. “And that’s the trouble.”

With that, he turned back toward the greenhouses, muttering into his collar while Mrs. Norris stalked ahead, tail high like a banner.

Chapter Text

The greenhouse smelled like wet earth and sharp herbs, the kind of place where roots dug deeper than secrets and leaves hid more than light. Condensation fogged the glass, dripping slow onto tables cluttered with pots and trowels.

Professor Sprout stood elbow-deep in a repotting tray, wrestling a venomous tentacula into a larger pot. Its vines writhed sluggishly, like it knew it was being demoted. She had the sleeves of her robes rolled up, soil streaked to the elbow, and her expression was the picture of patient exasperation.

Filch hovered in the doorway, notebook under one arm, fedora casting a long shadow across the damp floor. Mrs. Norris sniffed a patch of moss, then sneezed.

“You’re pretty good with a venomous tentacula,” Filch observed.

“Yes, taming them is one of my specialities.” Sprout smiled.

“Professor,” Filch rasped, stepping closer. “Sorry to interrupt yer gardening, but I’ve questions. About the stiff in the staffroom.”

Sprout gave a grunt, shoved the last of the soil around the base of the tentacula, and wiped her hands on a rag that looked older than half the castle. “Silas Thorne,” she said flatly. “I wondered how long it would take before you came sniffing round.”

Filch’s quill scratched across the page.

“You knew him better than most,” Filch prodded. “On account of bein’ married.”

Sprout’s mouth tightened. She pulled her gloves off finger by finger, slow and deliberate, then tossed them onto the table. “Once, yes. Briefly. Foolishly.”

“Why’d it end?” Filch leaned forward, notebook ready.

Her eyes flashed. “Because I saw him for what he was. A cheat, first of all. His eyes wandered wherever skirts swished. Sibyll Trelawney, for one. I walked in on them once—her shawls all over my sofa, his shoes under the table. She called it ‘destiny.’ I called it adultery.”

Filch’s quill scored the page: Victim’s wandering eye. Mistress: Sibyll Trelawney. Marriage rotted by shawls and lies.

“And then,” Sprout went on, her voice hardening like soil in drought, “I discovered worse. He wasn’t just unfaithful. He was unclean. Branded with the Dark Mark, whispering in the shadows with Death Eaters. When I knew the truth, I couldn’t share a roof with him another day. I left. Papers signed, marriage done. I never looked back.”

Filch whistled low through his teeth. “Dark wizard husband. Diviner mistress. You’ve got dirt enough for a whole compost heap.”

Sprout crossed her arms. “And you’ve got enough nerve for ten men, Mr. Filch, poking through my past like it’s a pumpkin patch. But I’ll say this once: I did not kill Silas Thorne. He ruined his own life long before anyone else laid a hand on him.”

Filch scribbled furiously, lips moving with each word: Ex-wife denies murder. Claims he carried his own poison. But grudges root deep, and vines strangle slow.

Sprout turned back to her tentacula, but Filch’s sharp eyes weren’t on the plant. They were on her sleeves.

There—at the edge of her right cuff, a ragged little fringe of threads, brown and fibrous. Same shade, same twist, same look as the envelope tucked safe in his coat pocket. His pulse ticked faster.

“Hold it right there,” he rasped. He fished the envelope out, tweezers already in hand, and shook free the fibers he’d bagged from beside the stiff. He held them up to the cuff, side by side.

Mrs. Norris leapt onto the potting bench, tail twitching, watching like a judge.

Filch squinted, magnifying glass to his eye. A grin spread slow across his face. “Match. Exact bloody match. Fibers from the crime scene. Fibers from your robes. Looks like you’ve been keepin’ closer company with the stiff than you’d like to admit.”

Sprout raised her brows, unimpressed. “Really, Mr. Filch. Sackcloth.” She tugged at the cuff. “Every gardener’s robe in my wardrobe is made from it. Coarse, cheap, durable. The Sorting Hat was relined in the same cloth not two summers ago. Threads on the floor could just as easily be from that—and it sat in the staffroom this morning.”

Sprout leaned in, eyes flinty. “So unless you plan to haul the Sorting Hat in for questioning, I’d suggest you keep your suspicions tidy, Filch. Dirt is my business, and I know better than most: it sticks to everything.”

He snapped the notebook shut, fedora shadowing his scowl. “Aye. Dirt sticks. And I’ll see what else sticks to you, Professor.”

Mrs. Norris purred low, as if promising more digging to come.

Filch flipped a page in his notebook, the scratch of his stubby pencil loud in the humid air of the greenhouse. “Right, Professor. Let’s settle the matter proper. Did you see your ex-husband this morning?”

Sprout’s hands didn’t pause in their work, though the roots of the Venomous Tentacula quivered as if they sensed her unease. “No, Mr. Filch. I did not.” Her voice was firm, but the soil clumped more tightly in her grip than it needed to.

“A portrait saw you going into the staff room yesterday morning?”

“Whoever it was, they were mistaken.”

“Where were you, then?” he rasped, leaning forward, the brim of his fedora shading his beady stare.

“In Greenhouse Three,” she answered without hesitation. “Repotting.” She patted down the mound of earth as though that settled the matter. “You can see for yourself—half the mandrakes have been moved already.”

Filch’s pencil scratched: Alibi—Greenhouse 3. Plants as witnesses.

“And did anyone see you there?” His voice was sharp, like a broom handle cracking on stone.

Sprout nodded briskly, brushing her gloved hands together. “Yes. Minerva came by at about half-past nine. We chatted for over an hour. About curriculum. About supplies. About… other matters.”

Filch’s lip curled in a half-smile, more sneer than comfort. “So Minerva’ll vouch for you, will she?”

“She will,” Sprout said, meeting his eyes squarely. “You can ask her yourself.”

“The same professor who’s been affected by memory modification magic?”

Professor Sprout didn’t have an answer to that.

Filch closed his notebook with a snap, but his mind was already circling. He’d learned long ago that alibis stitched with friendly conversation tended to unravel quickest.

Mrs. Norris slunk between the plant tables, tail twitching. Filch muttered under his breath: “Greenhouse 3. Minerva at 9:30. Over an hour, she says. Either that’s clean truth… or a neat little seed planted in fresh soil.”

Filch snapped his notebook shut and slid the pencil back behind his ear. “Right then, Professor. That’ll do… for now.” His voice rasped like a broom dragged over stone.

Sprout gave a curt nod, already turning back to her Venomous Tentacula, but he didn’t miss the way her shoulders slumped the moment his eyes left hers.

Mrs. Norris leapt lightly onto a bench, sniffed at the damp earth, and hissed as if in judgment. Filch scratched her behind the ears. “Come on, girl. We’ve got more dirt to dig up than what’s in these pots.”

He tipped the brim of his fedora at Sprout in a mockery of courtesy and shuffled toward the door. “You mind your mandrakes, Professor. I’ll mind the murder.”

The greenhouse door groaned shut behind him, leaving the scent of damp soil and the faint rustle of Sprout’s work behind. Out in the grounds, he muttered to his cat, “Alibis sproutin’ like weeds, but weeds’ve got roots. And roots are meant for pulling.”

With that, Argus Filch—caretaker, Squib, detective—stalked off down the garden, notebook clutched like a weapon, already planning his next move.

Chapter Text

Filch was trudging back from the greenhouses, mud still on his boots, when the front doors banged open and out swept Madam Pince.

Only she wasn’t the same woman he’d left in candlelight the night before. Last night she’d been all perfume and whispers, hair down, eyes half-lidded. This morning she looked like a different species altogether: hair strangled into a bun so tight it could’ve cracked walnuts, spectacles glinting like twin daggers, skirt and blouse so severe they could’ve been issued by the Ministry.

“Mr. Filch,” she said briskly, as if they hadn’t shared lamb and secrets twelve hours ago. “I’ve completed the search of the Daily Prophet archives. Back copies are on your desk. You’ll find several items of possible relevance.”

Filch grunted in appreciation.

“And speaking of the Daily Prophet,” she continued. “That reporter Rita Skeeter is interviewing the portraits, making a nuisance of herself.”

Her voice was flat as a closing ledger. Before he could rasp a word, she was already stalking off. “I must get the library ready for the students.” She said “students” like other people said “dysentery.”

Filch watched her retreat, fedora brim low over his eyes. Last night she’d been a dream in silk. Today she was a guillotine in sensible shoes. He scratched a note in his head: Women change faster than a crime scene.

Mrs. Norris flicked her tail and purred. He wasn’t sure if she agreed… or if she just liked the guillotine better.

Filch hobbled up the front steps, knees aching like hinges that had never seen oil. Halfway up, he spotted it: Hagrid’s legacy. Mud. Smeared in fat streaks up the stairs, splattered across the entrance hall, dragged in a sloppy trail straight down the corridor toward the staff room. The sort of mess that laughed in the face of a mop.

He stopped dead, swore under his breath. Hagrid hadn’t just trampled his crime scene — he’d marched clean through it, boots big enough to make craters, tea mug in hand. Any clue worth its salt was already swimming with mud.

Filch tugged his fedora low, muttering. “Can’t expect the professors to help now. Not with their wands back.” The memory of them sulking with feather dusters still gave him a sour thrill, but that thrill was gone. They’d hex him into the floor before scrubbing another cobweb. And he didn’t have hours to waste with a mop if he meant to solve this before the castle filled with noisy brats again.

So he went to the one place in Hogwarts where work was never refused — the kitchens.

The elves greeted him like conquering royalty. Within seconds, he had another bacon butty shoved into his hand — hot, greasy, the bread already softening from the fat. He bit into it with a grunt of satisfaction, grease slicking his fingers while he rattled off orders. “Corridor, staff room, all of it. Scrub till it shines.”

The elves bobbed their heads, big eyes earnest. “We is doing it at once, Mister Filch, sir!”

“Good,” he rasped, licking bacon grease from his thumb. “Pristine crime scene’s a lost cause anyway. Just get the mud up.”

One elf — tiny, ears like sails — tugged timidly at his sleeve. “Beg pardon, sir. But what about Professor Thorne’s trunk? Still sitting in the side chamber. Pippy is wondering if it should be taken to his office.”

Filch paused, chewing slowly, eyes narrowing. A trunk. Untouched. Waiting.

He swallowed, wiped his greasy fingers on his coat, and rasped, “Bring it to my office. I’ll look through it myself.”

The elf bowed low. Mrs. Norris wound around Filch’s legs, purring like she already knew the trunk was heavy with secrets.

Filch tugged the fedora lower and muttered around the last mouthful of bacon, “About time the stiff told me what he was hiding.”

Filch shut his office door behind him with a thump, the sound echoing off stone and stacked boxes. Mrs. Norris leapt onto the desk at once, tail curling possessively around the neat pile of Daily Prophets Irma had left. Each issue was sorted in date order, the top copy yellowed at the edges, ink faded like an old bruise. A note in her sharp hand perched on top: Oldest first.

Filch settled into his chair, pulled the stack close, and flipped open the first paper.

June 1978. Wedding announcements, third page. There it was in neat black type: Professor Silas Thorne weds Professor Pomona Sprout, ceremony held at a small chapel near Hogsmeade. The moving photograph showed the bride broad-smiled, hair tucked under a wreath of flowers, and the groom smirking as if he’d won more than vows. Filch’s eyes caught on the names listed below: Matron of Honor: Minerva McGonagall. Best Man: Elphinstone Urquart.

Filch grunted, quill scratching in his notebook: Minerva tied to both sides of the rope. Her tartan tangled with the stiff before she ever wore black for Urquart. Dirt don’t get older than that.

He flipped the page.

July 1979. Bold headline: Death Eater Trial — Thorne Acquitted.

Filch read hungrily, lips moving over the lines. Igor Karkaroff had stood in the witness box, selling names like cabbages at market. He’d pointed his bony finger at Thorne, claiming the man had brewed up an even fouler Imperius curse — one that left false memories behind, covering the tracks of slavery with the gloss of free will.

But the article noted Karkaroff’s desperation, the way he bartered lives for his own freedom. Too many names, too much doubt. The Wizengamot hadn’t bought it. Thorne had walked out free.

Filch spat into the wastebasket. “Court might’ve cleared you, stiff,” he rasped, “but dirt like that don’t wash off.”

He reached for the next paper.

August 1980. The briefest line in the Prophet’s family notices: The Ministry of Magic confirms the dissolution of the marriage between Pomona Sprout and Silas Thorne. No photograph, no fuss. Just a clean severing, ink on parchment.

Filch jotted: Marriage rotted out. Divorce quiet. Too quiet.

He moved to the next clipping and frowned. This one wasn’t Prophet ink at all, but the garish fonts of The Quibbler. Headline screamed across the page: Tentacula or Treachery? The Truth About Urquart’s Death.

The article rambled in lunatic flourishes — venomous plants framed, Death Eater plots lurking behind every chessboard. But the core was clear: whispers that Thorne had played the last game with Minerva’s husband, and that the “bite” blamed for Urquart’s death might never have happened at all.

Filch leaned back, pencil tapping the margin. Quibbler or not, smoke still meant fire. And if Thorne’s shadow had stretched over Minerva’s grief…

He shut the paper, stacked it back neat, and looked down at Mrs. Norris. Her eyes gleamed green as the ink itself.

“Filthy past, filthy present,” Filch muttered. “And corpses don’t lie, even if the papers do.”

Chapter Text

Filch was still hunched over the last clipping, quill tapping the margin, when a knock rattled his office door. He barked, “What now?” and yanked it open.

Four house-elves stood in the corridor, faces pinched with effort. Between them dangled Professor Thorne’s trunk — a great brass-bound thing, wobbling on their spindly arms like it weighed more than a dragon’s hoard. They shuffled inside, set it down with a grunt, and gave him bows deep enough to knock their noses on the stone.

“Trunk delivered, Mister Filch, sir,” the one named Pippy squeaked, before they scuttled out as quick as they could.

Filch shut the door, turned the key, and eyed the trunk. It wasn’t even locked. Sloppy. For a man so vain about his robes, he hadn’t bothered with so much as a charm on the one thing that mattered. Filch crouched, popped the latch, and heaved the lid back.

The smell hit him first — incense and too much cologne, like a funeral parlor set on fire. Inside was a peacock’s nightmare: Flamboyant robes in every shrieking color of the rainbow, silks and velvets jumbled like a circus tent after closing time. Filch pawed through them with a sneer, muttering about vanity as he shoved aside garment after garment.

Then his fingers struck paper. A fat sheaf of parchment, tied with twine. He dragged it out and dropped it on the desk. The title page was a scrawl: Grindelwald and Dumbledore: The Untold Story by Silas Thorne.

Filch spent the next few hours reading it through, eyes narrowing. This wasn’t a history. It wasn’t even scholarship. Page after page leaned not on fact but insinuation. Lines dripped with gossip, footnotes bristled with rumor. He underlined phrases with a grimy fingernail — forbidden affection, suspect intimacy, the companion in shadows.

And the heart of it — the part that made Filch’s breath rasp in his throat — wasn’t Grindelwald at all. It was Dumbledore.

Dumbledore the intimate. Dumbledore the companion. Dumbledore, chained not by the Dark Arts but by desire.

Filch slammed the manuscript shut, yellow grin showing under the fedora brim. “So that’s the game,” he muttered. “Not a book about Grindelwald at all. A book to drag the Headmaster through the mud. He weren’t chasing history. He were chasing scandal.”

Mrs. Norris leapt onto the desk, tail swishing across the stack. Her green eyes fixed on the title page, unblinking.

Filch sat back in his chair, the trunk gaping open behind him, flamboyant robes spilling onto the floor like spilled secrets. He tapped the edge of the manuscript, thoughts grinding like millstones.

“Well, girl,” he rasped, giving Mrs. Norris a scratch under the chin, “looks like our stiff wasn’t just chasing gold. He was chasing glory — and he meant to take the Headmaster down with him. And that sort of glory’ll get a man killed faster than any curse.”

Filch pushed open the carved doors to the Headmaster’s office, boots grinding on the spiral staircase as it deposited him into the room. The place smelled of lemon drops and secrets. Fawkes gave a sleepy trill from his perch, golden eyes watching like a judge.

Rita Skeeter was just leaving as he entered, perfume hanging in the air like smoke. She smirked and winked as she brushed past him, notebook clutched like contraband. Filch growled low in his throat, already suspicious of what stories she’d spin from half-truths.

Dumbledore sat behind his desk, quill still in hand, looking resigned — as if he’d been expecting him. His office glimmered with whirring trinkets, all busy doing nothing, shadows from the tall windows casting bars across the floor.

“Ah, Argus,” the old wizard said mildly, as though the caretaker had wandered in to report a broken banister. “You have questions, I imagine.”

Filch tugged his fedora lower, notebook under his arm. “Too right I do.” He shuffled closer, Mrs. Norris at his heel, eyes glowing green in the candlelight. “I’ve been through the stiff’s trunk. Found pages — his grand ‘book.’ Only it weren’t about Grindelwald, not really. It was about you. Page after page draggin’ your name through the muck.”

Dumbledore set his quill aside, fingers steepling. “I see.”

“You saw him too,” Filch growled. “Nine o’clock. You walked into that staffroom with the Sorting Hat in your hand. You pleaded with him, begged him not to print it. You admit that?”

“I do,” Dumbledore said quietly. His voice was calm, but the lamplight showed a faint crease between his brows. “I entreated Professor Thorne not to publish certain… personal details. They were true enough, but not relevant to his scholarship. And I had no wish to see the school divided by matters long past.”

Filch’s quill scratched across his notebook. “No wish, eh? Yet when a man threatens to drag your name through every breakfast table in Britain, sometimes wishin’ ain’t enough. Sometimes you shut him up.”

Fawkes ruffled his feathers, the sound sharp as a match struck. The firebird’s keen eyes burned into him, and for a moment Filch had the sensation he was the one on trial.

Dumbledore’s gaze did not waver. “If you are asking whether I silenced Professor Thorne by force, the answer is no. I left him alive and unhurt. I returned here, to prepare for the start of term.”

Filch jabbed his pencil in the air. “An alibi of parchment and ink. Nobody saw you till I came knockin’. That leaves you free from nine fifteen till half ten to slip back down and finish the job.”

The Headmaster folded his hands, rings glinting faintly in the lamplight. His voice softened, but the steel beneath it was unmistakable. “That is true. I have no witnesses to swear where I was. I can only tell you the truth: I did not kill him.”

Filch scowled, snapping his notebook shut. “Truth’s a slippery thing, Headmaster. Paper says one thing, men say another, corpses say nothin’ at all.”

Mrs. Norris hissed softly from the rug. Filch adjusted his fedora, eyes narrowing. “But mark me — if it turns out you’re playin’ me false, I’ll find out. Even though you are the one sittin’ in this chair.”

Dumbledore inclined his head gravely, almost like a bow. “I would expect no less.”

Chapter Text

Filch had never liked climbing the North Tower. He liked it even less now that Rita Skeeter had insisted on accompanying him, tottering up the stairs in heels that clicked. The steps seemed built for gliding ghosts, not men with bad knees and reporters with perfume sharp enough to knock a man sideways. Mrs. Norris bounded ahead, tail flicking, while Filch wheezed his way up the last curve and then up the trapdoor ladder.

The closer they got, the more the air smelled of stale sherry.

Professor Trelawney opened the door before they could knock, bangles jingling as though she’d divined the knock itself. Her eyes loomed large behind thick spectacles, fogged faintly from the smoke curling around her.

“Mr. Filch,” she breathed, clutching a tasseled shawl around her shoulders. “And… a guest. My, my, the vibrations from the dungeons were dark… heavy… accusatory. You mustn’t bring such energies into my sanctum.”

“Your sanctum’s where I’ll be askin’ my questions, Professor,” Filch rasped. He ducked inside, notebook under one arm. The place looked like a pawnshop sneezed on by a perfumed dragon: Stacks of teacups, towers of shawls, smoke so thick it clung to his throat. The ornate green quill was still lying on the desk. Mrs. Norris sneezed once and hopped onto a cushion.

Rita slipped in after him, already tugging her Quick-Quotes Quill and notebook from her beaded handbag. The quill hovered, twitching, like it could smell blood.

Trelawney waved toward a spindly chair. “Do sit. The spirits prefer we speak eye to eye.”

Filch ignored the chair, flipping open his notebook. “First off. You and the stiff. Thorne.”

Her hand fluttered to her chest. “Ah. Poor Silas. Once, long ago, he and I… shared a destiny. Our stars entwined for a season. But the alignment passed, as all things do. Our fates diverged.”

Rita’s quill scratched greedily, underlining shared a destiny.

He grunted. “So you admit you were his woman.”

“I was his oracle,” she corrected, chin lifting. “His Muse. Until he betrayed the path the stars had chosen.”

Filch leaned in. “And what path was that, eh? Straight under another woman’s shawls? Sprout’s, maybe?”

Trelawney sniffed with exaggerated dignity. “Silas was… restless. But I am not so base as to dwell on jealousies.”

Rita coughed into her quill, loud enough to sound like a laugh.

Filch scribbled: Lover admits to wandering eye. Claims no jealousy. Voice too stiff.

He looked over Rita’s shoulder to the notes she was taking, and then took out the piece of paper he’d found on the body. The handwriting matched.

“Nice quill you’ve got there,” he observed.

Rita laughed. “It’s my Quick Quotes Quill — makes doing interviews a snap. I see that the oracle here has one as well.”

“It’s a Quick Notes Quill actually,” Trelawney corrected. “But the same manufacturer. And the same elegant hand.”

“So you could have written this with your fancy quill.” Filch brandished the note he found on the corpse: I’ll see you at 10 am. — S

But before the suspect could say anything, Rita spoke up. “Oh she didn’t — that note is from me. It was confirming our interview for 10am today.”

Filch’s jaw tightened. His quill carved harder, as he made a note that the evidence was worthless.

They’d barely made it down two spirals of the North Tower when Rita Skeeter swung in front of him, skirts swishing like a curtain pulled shut. Her Quick-Quotes Quill hovered at the ready, ink already dripping.

“Hold still, darling,” she purred, snapping open her notebook. “I need a statement. The Prophet’s readers will simply die for every juicy detail of your little inquiry.”

Filch’s jaw clenched. Mrs. Norris hissed at her ankles. “This ain’t a game for your gossip rag, Skeeter. It’s murder.”

“Exactly!” Rita’s smile was a predator’s. “And you, the humble Squib caretaker, transformed into Hogwarts’ own private detective—how irresistible. Now, what have you learned so far? For the record.”

Filch tugged his fedora low, but his notebook was already open in his other hand. His pencil scratched as he muttered. “What I’ve learned is this: every one of ‘em’s got dirt under their fingernails.”

“Delicious,” Rita said, leaning closer. “Let’s go one by one, shall we?”

Filch’s grin was wolfish. He stabbed the pencil at his notes. “Sprout. Ex-wife. Fibers from her robes at the scene, plus a row loud enough to wake the dead. Motive clear as day—hate and old hurt. But she swears she left him alive.”

The quill scratched furiously, adding flourishes Rita hadn’t spoken.

“Snape,” Filch went on, voice gravel. “Gold from his vault found in the stiff’s pocket. Not sure why — Snape isn’t talking. But if he was gonna kill him, why waste the money first?”

Rita’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, readers will eat that up. Gold and betrayal. Go on.”

“Dumbledore.” Filch’s pencil jabbed harder. “Victim had a book, smear job on the Headmaster’s name. Motive’s there—reputation. Opportunity too. He was in the room at nine o’clock with the Hat. But the stiff was seen alive later. Still… no alibi after.”

Rita’s quill underlined Dumbledore’s shameful past? in looping script.

“Flitwick.” Filch’s voice turned rougher. “Old schoolyard bullying — Thorne was a thorn in Flitwick’s side. The same poison found in his coffee was found in the stiff’s flask, but also in Flitwick’s cupboard. Stolen from Snape. Recreational at low dosages. He could spiked his own drink. Could be murder, could be death by misadventure.”

“Mm,” Rita murmured. “Tragic or comic? The angle writes itself.”

“And Sibyll.” Filch sniffed. “Calls herself an oracle. Thone’s lover once. She’s slippery. Too slippery. And if she had the motive—jealousy—she won’t admit it. Not yet.”

Rita’s quill scrawled, Former lover in denial? The stars say yes.

Filch snapped his notebook shut. “So that’s what I know. Every one of ‘em had cause. Every one of ‘em could’ve done it.”

Rita gave a little clap of her manicured hands. “Marvelous, darling! Positively cinematic. You’re wasted on mops and buckets.”

He gave her a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “This ain’t a show, Skeeter. It’s murder. And I’ll see it solved before you turn it into your next column.”

Rita’s smile only widened, quill twitching like a vulture’s wing. “Oh, Argus. You solve it, I sell it. We all do what we’re best at. And as for my next column, it’ll be in tomorrow’s Daily Prophet.”

Mrs. Norris growled low in her throat. Filch adjusted his fedora brim and muttered, “Best hope you get there first, Skeeter. Else it’ll be your name in the headline.”

Chapter Text

The sun was already sinking low when the first echo of the train whistle drifted across the lake. Six o’clock sharp, as punctual as the sunset. The Great Hall glowed with candlelight, its four house tables seeming to stretch into polished infinity, empty of cobwebs and dust, but expectant. At the staff table, a row of professors sat tight and uneasy. No wands out, but no smiles either. And Rita was here, sitting at the end of the table, having invited herself to the feast.

McGonagall’s lips were pressed thin as knife-edges, Sprout fidgeted with her silverware, Flitwick’s feet swung nervously beneath his chair. Snape brooded, cloak wrapped close, eyes flicking every so often toward Dumbledore, who looked maddeningly serene, as though the whole thing were a chess match he’d already played. Sibyll muttered into a half-empty glass, her shawls dripping onto the flagstones.

They weren’t waiting for students. They were waiting to see who at that table was a murderer.

From beyond the doors, the clatter of hooves and chains announced the carriages. The sound rolled in through the stone like thunder.

And then the doors opened.

Older students spilled in first — robes swirling, laughter loud, voices ricocheting off the enchanted ceiling. The hall filled fast with the chaos of return: Hugs slammed across house tables, nicked biscuits traded, gossip hurled like Bludgers. The green-trimmed Slytherins sneered across at the scarlet Gryffindors, Ravenclaws were already shuffling parchments, and the Hufflepuffs were passing out pumpkin pasties like ration cards.

Noise roared up to the rafters. It was a tidal wave of chatter and joy, crashing against the tight line of professors at the high table.

Behind them, half-hidden by the shadows of the staff entrance, Argus Filch waited, his fedora tipped low and his notebook under his arm. Mrs. Norris coiled at his boots, eyes gleaming green in the candlelight.

Filch rasped a breath through his teeth. The castle had its children back, noisy and oblivious, filling the hall with their careless cheer.

The din of the hall rose and fell in waves — laughter, the scrape of benches, the excited buzz of a hundred students telling summer’s worth of secrets. Then, at last, the doors groaned wide again.

Professor McGonagall swept in, green robes snapping at her heels, the Sorting Hat held stiffly in her hands. Behind her, the line of first-years trailed, wide-eyed and whispering, their necks craned at the floating candles, the bewitched ceiling, the ancient stone groaning with history.

The chatter dimmed as the little ones filed to the front. Minerva set the three-legged stool in place with a firm thump, then lowered the Sorting Hat onto it like a crown at a coronation.

The Hat yawned, stretched its brim, and then opened its mouth in song.

Its voice rolled up into the rafters, sonorous, self-important, every syllable ringing like prophecy.

“I sort the brave in Gryffindor,
Keen of heart, they ask no more.

In every fight they’ll take the lead,
Lions bold in word and deed.

Loyal Hufflepuff stands fast,
Every bond they make will last.

Deep in work, both kind and true,
Steadfast souls in all they do.

I save the smart for Ravenclaw,
Learning sharp, with thirst for law.

A mind that seeks, a questing tone,
Scholars wise, they walk alone.

Through Slytherin has cunning arts,
Hidden aims lie in their hearts.

Old ambition, fierce and sly,
Rising high, they reach the sky.

Now the choice is mine to own,
Each shall find their rightful home.”

The students clapped when the song ended. The Hat gave a bow so deep it nearly toppled from the stool. Minerva straightened, ready to call the first name from her list.

But in the shadows, Filch’s grin spread slow and wolfish beneath the brim of his fedora. His quill made a big circle on the furious notes he’d just taken. He had the final piece of the puzzle and knew who killed Professor Thorne.

And not a soul but him knew it.

The Sorting seemed to Filch to last an eternity, each name droning on, each child dithering under the Hat while the staff muttered polite encouragement. By the time the last frightened first-year scurried to their house table, Filch’s knees ached from standing.

Dumbledore rose, twinkle in his eye, and gave his customary four words: “Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak.” The hall roared with laughter, plates filled, and for the next hour the Great Hall was a chaos of clattering dishes, gossip, and house banners fluttering proudly.

To Filch, it was torment. He barely tasted the slice of pork pie he’d claimed for himself, and every time a student shrieked with delight at seeing a friend, it sounded to him like mockery. He bounced on the balls of his feet at the head of the hall, itching to cut through the noise, to lay down his case, to show them all he was more than the castle’s Squib caretaker. He had worked the clues, followed the trail, sniffed out every scrap of dirt, and tonight—tonight—he would prove it.

Finally, when the last pudding vanished and prefects began herding their charges toward the dormitories, Filch could take no more. He strode up to the high table, fedora tipped low, notebook clutched like a weapon.

“Professors,” he rasped, his voice carrying sharp as a broom handle crack across stone, “you’ll come with me. Staff room. Now. It’s been cleaned proper by the elves. I know who killed Professor Thorne.”

A ripple ran through the table: Surprise, suspicion, even a flicker of unease. Filch reached out with bony hands and snatched the Sorting Hat from its perch on the stool, tucking it under his arm like a prize exhibit.

Mrs. Norris slinked at his heel, tail flicking. Rita Skeeter, perfume and quill already twitching for blood, slipped from the shadows to fall in step behind him.

Filch led the way out of the Great Hall, boots striking sparks off the flagstones, his shoulders squared with more pride than he’d felt in years. Tonight, he would have his reckoning.

Chapter Text

The staffroom had been scrubbed clean by the elves until the stone gleamed, but Filch entered like a man claiming it as his crime scene all over again. He marched straight to the long conference table, the Sorting Hat clutched in his claw-like hands, and dropped it squarely in the center with a thump that made several professors jump. The dead man’s blue hat was already here, and he stood it up next to the Sorting Hat. It hovered an inch above the table.

Mrs. Norris leapt up onto a chair, tail curling possessively.

Rita Skeeter slipped in behind him, quill already hovering, eyes glittering with anticipation.

Filch pulled out his battered notebook, flipped it open, and stabbed a finger at the first page. His gravelly voice carried through the silent room.

“Silas Thorne came here to accept the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. But he had an ulterior motive too. Did he come here to duke it out with a woman who thought he’d killed her husband? Or to confront his ex-wife? Or his former lover? Or to extort money from a former colleague? Or to torment a new colleague? Right then. Let’s take this proper. One by one. Each of you had motive. Each of you had the chance. But only one is guilty.”

He jabbed his pencil toward Sibyll Trelawney, who flinched, her bangles clinking.

“First, you. Lover once upon a time, weren’t you? Could’ve soured, could’ve turned to grudge. There’s a note in the stiff’s pocket, in green ink, looking for all the world like one that comes out of your fancy quill. No witness saw you stay in your tower. You could’ve wafted down these halls and slipped the knife—or curse—in. All neat and tidy.”

Sibyll gasped, pressing a bejeweled hand to her breast. “I would never—”

But Filch cut her off, snapping the notebook shut with a crack. “Except it weren’t you. That note weren’t written by your quill at all. It was Rita Skeeter’s invitation. An interview, not a death warrant. And how could you cause an aneurysm? You’re not exactly an expert on the Dark Arts, are you? You say you were in your tower the whole morning, and out of everyone here, you I believe.”

Rita smirked, lips tight, while her quill scratched.

Filch swung his glare to Dumbledore. The Headmaster sat very still, blue eyes unreadable.

“Then there’s you. Reputation on the line, weren’t it? Book full of secrets, whispers of Grindelwald. You had motive enough. And opportunity—you were in that staffroom at nine sharp with the Hat in your hand, begging Thorne to keep quiet. No alibi after. You could have returned later and done the deed.”

He leaned in, voice dropping to a rasp. “If anyone in this room had cause to silence him permanent, it was you.”

The room held its breath. Dumbledore only inclined his head, calm as a still pond.

“But,” Filch growled, “you’re not my killer either.”

He turned, notebook snapping open again. His pencil jabbed toward Flitwick, whose short legs barely reached the floor.

“You, though—ah, you’ve got history. Victim bullied you to bits in school. Never let you forget your size. And what shows up in his coffee? Boomslang Heart. Same filth I found bottled in your cupboard. Poison.”

Flitwick’s mustache twitched indignantly, but Filch ploughed on.

“But then, what do we find in the stiff’s flask? Same poison—except harmless, at the dose he’d taken. He spiked his own drink, foolish or not. That death weren’t in your hand. Scratch Flitwick off the list.”

Snape interrupted. “Then why did he steal my ground Boomslang Heart?” He stared at Flitwick, who blushed and looked away.

“Mere… vanity. Severus… I do apologize,” Flitwick stammered.

A turn of the page, and his yellow grin spread.

“Now, Sprout. Ex-wife. Plenty of dirt there. Fibers from your robes found in the staffroom. And a portrait saw you march out after a row. The stiff was still breathing when you left—but you were there.”

Sprout folded her arms, chin set. “I argued, yes. He was my husband once, and he deserved a tongue-lashing. But I did not kill him.”

Filch scribbled the words down, notebook creaking under the force. “Aye. You admit the row, but not the killing. Maybe you’re right.”

His eyes gleamed as he swung to Snape, who met his stare with a black scowl.

“And you. Gold from your vault found in his pocket, but you won’t say how it got there. You’d better confess it now!”

Snape’s mouth got as thin as anyone had ever seen it. “Very well. If you must know, Thorne was blackmailing me. He was threatening to expose that I was a double agent, really working for Dumbledore against the Dark Lord. I suspected that he didn’t have proof, but it seemed prudent to give him what he wanted while we figured out what to do…”

Snape glanced at Dumbledore, who nodded. “I can vouch for this,” said the Headmaster. “I knew about his blackmail attempt. It was one reason I wanted him at Hogwarts — so we could keep an eye on him.”

Snape’s lip curled. “If we’d wanted him dead, I’d not have wasted the money, especially since it could be traced to me.”

Filch’s grin was wolfish. “True. And you’re not the killer either.”

Finally, he turned, slow as a judge, toward Minerva. She sat stiff-backed, tartan draped neat, lips a thin white line.

“You dueled him. You accused him of murdering your husband. You left spell residue in the room to prove it. You had reason enough to finish him off when he smirked back at you. And you’ve no alibi worth a knut.”

The room tensed. Minerva’s chin rose, and her voice was like ice. “I dueled, yes. But I left him alive. I am no murderer, Mr. Filch.”

Filch slammed the notebook shut with a final crack, the fedora’s brim shadowing his eyes.

“No,” he rasped. “Not you either. And you were Imperiused. How does that fit in, you might wonder. I’ve laid it out, and every trail ends the same: dirty, twisted, but not the hand that struck the final blow.”

“In order to understand what happened in the staff room yesterday, we need to consider what kind of man Silas Thorne was, and why he accepted the post at Hogwarts. From the clothes in his trunk, and his garb yesterday, we can tell he was a flamboyant man, and his dalliance with Professor Trelawney suggests that he was a ladies’ man.”

“And how,” interjected Professor Sprout.

“But you still have to wonder why a man would own a hat that sits not on your head, but hovers above it.” Filch pointed to the blue hat hovering an inch above the table. “Unless it was to hide something.”

Filch dramatically put the blue hat on top of the Sorting Hat, which fit perfectly inside. Then, he swept both off the table and placed them on his head, knocking his fedora off in the process. The Sorting Hat was completely obscured by the oversized blue hat.

There were gasps around the room.

“You said, Headmaster, that the Sorting Hat was valuable and that the Dark Lord was rumored to be interested in acquiring it.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Yes, that is so.”

“And Professor Sprout, you divorced Silas Thorne in part because you discovered he carried the Dark Mark. He was a Death Eater.”

“Disgusting pig,” Sprout spat. “I don’t know how I could have fallen for his dubious charms.”

Snape spoke up. “I can confirm that he not only was a Death Eater, but that he is one still.”

“And that, Snape, is how you knew about his experiments with the Dark Arts. The novel spells.”

Snape nodded impatiently. “Get to the point, Filch.”

“Fine. My point is that Thorne was here to steal the Sorting Hat. And that was his downfall.”

Chapter Text

Filch retrieved his fedora from the floor, removed the blue hat, and placed the dead man’s hat and the Sorting Hat side-by-side on the table. He planted both hands on the table, leaning over the Sorting Hat as though daring it to twitch. His notebook lay open, pages crammed with his jagged scrawl. Mrs. Norris prowled along the backs of the chairs, tail flicking like a metronome of judgment.

“All right then,” he rasped, putting on his fedora once again. “You’ve all had your turn in the dock. Now here’s how it really went, step by step. Listen close.”

He licked a finger, turned a page, and jabbed the pencil at the first line.

“Eight-thirty. Minerva brings Thorne in from the gates, straight to the staffroom. She’s been waiting years to call him to account for her husband’s death, and she does. He denies it. They duel. Spell residue on the table prove it. But in the end, it’s Thorne who gets the better of her. He casts his souped-up version of the Imperius Curse, binds her up tight. His command? If he can’t deliver the Sorting Hat to Voldemort himself, she’s to steal it in his stead.”

“Minerva leaves under compulsion. Thorne’s alone. Sibyll and Flitwick have no alibis here, but neither steps foot in that room. It’s empty but for him.”

His eyes glittered as he moved down the list.

“Nine sharp. Dumbledore arrives. Sorting Hat in hand. He pleads with Thorne not to smear his name in that book. Leaves the Hat on the table. Leaves the stiff alive.”

Filch paced to the far end of the room, spun on his heel.

“Sometime afterwards, Sprout storms in. Ex-wife. Argument loud enough to shake the windows. Loud enough that the portraits outside can hear the shouting. What was the row about, Professor?”

Sprout squirmed. “About boundaries since we were both working at the same place. He flatly refused to discuss it. Wouldn’t listen to my concerns, and we got into a blazing row.”

“And the Sorting Hat — was it in the room?”

“Yes, it was sitting on the table.”

“And Snape, what about you? Did you see the Sorting Hat when you came in later?”

“No…”

“So when Sprout storms out, Thorne’s still breathing. And then he finally does it—he puts the Sorting Hat inside his oversized blue hat, and then puts the pair of them on his head.”

He stabbed the brim of his own fedora with the pencil, voice dropping low.

“That was his mistake. I’ll get to that in a minute.”

The room was silent but for Rita’s quill scratching furiously.

“Then, Snape enters. And you saw him wearing that blue hat, didn’t you, Snape?”

Snape frowned. “That ridiculous hat, yes.”

“Tosses a sack of gold on the desk. Blackmail money. He storms out.”

“There was some discussion first. I advised him of the… inadvisability of his current course of action.” Snape sneered.

“But he was alive when you left.”

“Certainly.”

“So now he enter the realm of uncertainty, but I think I have a good idea what happened next. The portraits say that they saw one other person who came into that room after Professor Snape left. But they are unable to say who, being distracted at the time.”

“Don’t keep us in suspect, darling,” Rita Skeeter purred.

“I think what happened was that sometime between Snape’s visit and his next visitor, the deed was done. He slumps over the table, unconscious but not dead yet.”

“And who was the visitor?” Skeeter pressed.

“Minerva McGonagall. She returned to the staff room, under this amped-up Imperious curse. She sees Thorne slumped over the table, his hat having fallen off his head. Probably the Sorting Hat fell out of the larger blue hat, or she can see it nestled inside. Since her command was to steal it, she takes it and stuffs it in her satchel. Takes it to her room, hides it in a hat box, and then hides it in my office in case anyone searches the staff rooms. I’m still on vacation — nobody will think to check my office.”

Snape made an impatient noise. “But even his version of the curse, Imperio Obruo Memoriae, would break once the caster is dead. She would no longer be under any compulsion, even if her memory of past events was permanently modified.”

“Yes, but death from an aneurysm isn’t instantaneous, is it Madame Pomprey?”

“Yes, it can be minutes to hours after the victim loses unconsciousness,” she explained.

Minerva spoke up. “Are you saying that the cause of death was natural after all?”

“No, it was murder all right. You’re overlooking one thing.” Filch pulls out yesterday’s Daily Prophet and turns to the page with the article on Legilimency. He then begins to read:

The Daily Prophet has learned that several Healers at St. Mungo’s have documented cases where Legilimency, if executed with excessive force or poor control, can fatally overstrain a subject’s mind. “The pressure of an invasive probe,” one Healer explained, “can rupture delicate blood vessels in the brain, much like an overfilled cauldron cracking under the boil.” Victims often collapse with blinding headaches or seizures, and in severe instances, the intrusion may culminate in a catastrophic cerebral aneurysm.

“How is this relevant,” Snape snarled.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Professor, but there are three expert Legilimens in this room. Chief among them, you.”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Snape’s voice was glacially cold.

Filch ignored him. “Dumbledore is also accomplished as this art, as I understand it. And one other in this room. One who uses it to probe the minds of children.. to determine which house to sort them into.”

All eyes moved to the Sorting Hat.

“So while Snape is paying his hush money, the Hat’s already digging in. Legilimency, deep and hard. The Hat sees everything—his schemes, his treachery, his plan to hand it off to Voldemort. And the Hat decides it won’t be stolen. So it squeezes. Drives the pressure up in his skull until the vessel bursts. Aneurysm. Neatest killing you’ll ever see—‘cause the weapon’s a thought, and the culprit’s a hat.”

He let the silence hang, the Sorting Hat squatting innocently in the center of the table.

Filch drew a ragged breath.

“Anyway, ten-thirty. That’s when I come in from my holiday. I open the staffroom door, and find the stiff cold on the table. Case closed.”

He snapped the notebook shut one last time, tucking it under his arm. His yellow grin gleamed beneath the brim of his fedora.

“So there’s your killer. Not Minerva, not Snape, not Dumbledore or Sprout. Not even Sibyll or Flitwick. It was the Sorting Hat itself. Hogwarts’ oldest relic. Legilimens, executioner, and liar all in one. And what’s more—” he jabbed a finger at the hat “—it bragged about it in its Sorting Song. Hid the confession right under our noses.”

Filch shoved the Sorting Hat to the center of the staffroom table, hard enough that it rocked on its brim. The teachers flinched, but the old rag only sagged there, looking half-asleep.

“You think I’m mad?” Filch rasped, eyes darting round the table. “You think this is another one of my crackpot theories? Then let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth. Or in this case—the hat’s.”

He leaned close, voice a growl. “Sing. The Sorting Song. Again.”

The brim twitched. For a long, tense moment, nothing. Then the Hat gave a wheezy sigh, as though it had been roused from a nap, and began to chant the very same verses it had sung an hour before in the Great Hall.

Filch straightened, notebook open, pencil ready. His fedora brim cast a shadow that made his grin look wolfish.

“Now listen,” he barked, pacing the length of the table. “Listen careful. Don’t just hear the words. Look at the first letter of every line. Write them down if you’ve got a quill.”

Rita Skeeter was already scribbling furiously, Quick-Quotes Quill trembling like it smelled blood. Minerva’s hands were folded tightly in her lap; Snape leaned back, arms crossed, black eyes narrowed.

Line after line spilled out of the Hat, describing bravery, loyalty, wit, and cunning. Each house, each virtue, neat as a lesson plan.

Filch jabbed his finger in the air with each verse. “There! You see it? One letter after another. Don’t take my word for it—read it yourselves.”

The Hat’s last syllable dwindled into silence. For a moment, no one breathed. Then Rita’s quill scrawled a dramatic flourish and she read it aloud, voice gleeful:

I KILLED SILAS THORNE.

A collective gasp swept the table. Minerva’s hand flew to her mouth. Flitwick squeaked in horror. Sprout sat rigid, dirt still crusted at her sleeve.

Only the Hat sagged, silent again, brim slouched like it had never said a word.

Filch snapped his notebook shut and slammed it on the table beside the Hat. His voice was low, raw, triumphant.

“There’s your confession. Clear as ink. The Sorting Hat killed Professor Thorne. And it bloody well told us so.”

Mrs. Norris leapt onto the table, curling round the Hat with a low, rumbling purr, as though guarding the scene of the crime.

Filch slumped back in his office chair, the lamplight throwing long shadows over towers of confiscated junk. On the desk, his battered fedora lay where he had set it—crown dented, brim frayed, the hat of a caretaker, not a detective.

Slowly, reverently, he lifted it, turned it once in his hands, then set it on the peg by the door. His scalp felt the cool draft of the dungeon air, and he breathed in deep, lungs rasping with satisfaction.

“All my life,” he muttered, eyes on the fedora, “they said I was nothin’. Just a Squib with a mop. But today—” his lips tugged into a crooked grin “—I proved I was more. I solved it. Me. Argus Filch. Not them with their wands. Me.”

Mrs. Norris purred from her perch on the filing cabinet, tail swishing like she agreed.

A knock broke the silence. Before he could bark an answer, the door creaked open. Irma Pince stepped in, hair loose from its bun, eyes sharp and gleaming. She crossed the room in three strides, plucked the fedora from its peg, and jammed it back onto his head with a flourish.

“You’re not done being a detective yet,” she said, her voice low and dangerous.

Before he could rasp a word, her hands clutched his lapels, yanking him forward. Her mouth met his in a kiss fierce enough to steal the breath from his lungs, and his fedora fell off.

With a decisive snap of her heel, she kicked the door shut behind her. The echo rang in the office like the final word of a case closed.

Mrs. Norris leapt lightly up onto the desk, tail curling high. She padded over to the fedora that had fallen on the desk, and with a delicate paw, nudged it onto the floor.

Then she settled herself on the blotter, eyes half-lidded, purring like she’d known all along who the real detective was.